What Did We Learn from the Government Shutdown?

It appears that the federal government is about to reopen. Did you even remember it had been shut down? I’m sure that, because you’re a reader of National Review, you were at least marginally aware that the federal government had come to a standstill over budget maneuvers back at the end of September, and that the shutdown reached a record-busting 40 days. Now, with a sudden break of Democratic senators, it’s almost over.

A full 40 days and 40 nights — it would feel biblical if anyone had been paying close attention. (Sort of like all those Sunday school lessons that pretty much went in one ear and out the other as I waited to sneak out for a smoke behind the gravestones. We were all distracted by everything else.)

Let’s at least note, as a marker of changing times, that the longest federal government shutdown in American history was treated as a nothingburger from Day One. It ain’t Newt Gingrich’s 1995 anymore, or even Ted Cruz’s 2013 for that matter. We’ve been through all of this before, adjusted to it, and now understand the correlation of political forces: This will all be forgotten by November 2026. Whatever political issues the 2026 midterms are run on, it will not be this mere footnote. What we just witnessed over the last month-plus was merely Washington, D.C., politicos idly playing fixed dice for show, indifferent to the human day-to-day cost.

Still, it’s remarkable how quickly Democrats appear to have decided to cut their losses. The shutdown ended for the simple reason that it was never triggered with any particular goal in mind, merely as a signposted stop along the legislative path of Congress where the Democrats could officially register their Full Party Objection to Everything Trump. Note the preceding capitalization, because this was always intended as a brand statement declaring the Democratic Party’s national colors rather than any specific policy push. It was done for no other reason than to demonstrate to an enraged and restive base that the Dems were still there for you. Fighting!

And yet the shutdown never caught fire as an issue. The political media didn’t care all that much, beyond the professional requirements of reporting on it. It merely lurked there in background, another Spy vs. Spy partisan caper. That might feel unfair to those who actually did suffer from it — nobody deserves to work unpaid or worry about their job security for reasons outside of their own performance — but it’s empirically clear that the American public, whether consciously or subconsciously, classified it as another installment of the Carnival of Fools.

The activists do care, however. The New York Times has chosen to memorialize this tragic moment with an Ezra Klein editorial wherein he laments the Democrats’ stepping on their momentum. (I note with undisguised glee the headline that originally appeared on the column: “Democrats were on a roll. Why stop now?”) I’ve even seen some of the most sober-minded left-leaning analysts I know declaring this apparent surrender — with nothing better than a promised vote on Obamacare subsidies as their “reward,” a deal that was on the table a full 35 days ago — as the moment when Chuck Schumer’s leadership of the Senate Democratic Caucus became untenable.

I am not so sure. My guess is that Schumer retires before the 2028 cycle in any event; but if his leadership was untenable, it became so long before this. In fact, his play was probably the best one available to him given the cards he’d been dealt. “Extend Obamacare subsidies” as the supposed sticking point was merely something agreed upon ex post facto as a unifying cry of revolt. In truth, the shutdown was about responding to base discontent.

But the best play is not always a good play. The real aftermath of the shutdown will affect not the voters but the irredentist left, which now stokes the engines of the Democratic Party. The left’s bloodthirst is up; it will remain unslaked until November 2026, if that. This was why heading into the fray without an endgame strategy feels so bitter for them today. Senate Democrats’ appetite for a fight that was purely for show is turning out to be vastly less acute than that of the online progressive hordes. Where those Democrats intended a show of strength, their online and donor partisans demand the apocalypse.

As the Coen brothers might have asked: What did we learn from all of this? I wish we could even say that we learned not to do this again. But of course we did not. I look forward to meeting you once again, come January 2026, when the next required show of “resistance” rolls around. We’ve all been through this too many times before.