Isn't "No Kings" the new Democratic Party political tagline?

 

Photo by Mike Newbry on Unsplash.

The Democratic Party politicians who initiated the current government shutdown didn’t know what they wanted or how to get Republicans to agree when they started it.

It’s been a month, and Democrats still haven’t been able to figure it out. What they want has something to do with extending pandemic-era healthcare subsidies set to expire at a previously agreed upon time.

Maybe?

As far as leverage to achieve this odd goal, Democratic Party leadership has been a bit fuzzy.

They need to come to table and negotiate with Republicans to reopen the government for the good of the nation — and the Democratic Party.

Here are a few reasons to end the shutdown:

The Shutdown Isn’t Making Democrats More Popular in the Polls

“The numbers don’t lie,” conservative news host Laura Ingraham crowed on X yesterday. “Republicans’ approval rises 5 points since the shutdown — and +8 among independents. Democrats’ playbook is backfiring. Americans know who’s keeping the doors shut — and it’s not the GOP.”

Chief CNN statistician Harry Enten confirms:

“You might think, given that the Republicans are in charge of both the House and the Senate, that a government shutdown might actually hurt the Republican brand — but in fact, it hasn’t,” Enten reported on October 28, 2025. “If anything, it’s been helped a little bit.”

Enten continued:

“All right, changing the Republican Congress net approval rating versus pre-shutdown — it’s rallying the base for sure. Look at this: the net approval rating is up 12 points versus pre-shutdown. But it’s not just with the base; it’s also with the middle of the electorate. Look at this — among independents, it’s up eight points as well.
So we’ve got a situation here where Republicans, with the shutdown, are actually rallying their base, but it’s also something that’s not hurting them with the voters in the middle. If anything, it’s helping them with folks in the middle.
This is, in fact, the worst position Democrats have been in on a generic ballot at this point in a midterm when there was a Republican president in the last 20 years. And this is no different from pre-shutdown. So Republicans aren’t losing on this metric either.
They’ve become more popular, and they’re actually in a pretty good position for them historically when it comes to the generic congressional ballot.” — Harry Enten, CNN. October 28, 2025.

Democrats Are Being Blamed for the Shutdown

“It is wrong that Democrats have held the government hostage for a month in hopes of extending costly Obamacare subsidies, just as it was for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to shut down the government in 2013 for 16 days in a bid to defund the Affordable Care Act altogether,” wrote the Washington Post editorial board this week.

Trying to soften the blow by reminding readers of actions a Republican Senator took a dozen years ago was nice of the WP. But the salient point remains the same.

“Largest federal workers union calls for ‘clean’ bill to end shutdown,” reported Amy B. Wang for the Washington Post earlier this week.

“Democrats had an opportunity to make these enhanced health care subsidies permanent during the Biden years, but chose not to,” noted David Winston for Roll Call on October 22, 2025. “Democrats could have made the credits permanent back then or at least extended them for the next 10 years. Instead, they chose to only extend them three years, as there was other spending in the Inflation Reduction Act bill that Democrats were willing to prioritize over the enhanced premiums.”

Some Democrats in Congress may already be seeing the light.

“Thaw in shutdown talks raises senators’ hopes for a deal next week,” reported Burgess Everett for Semafor on Thursday. “Senators in both parties — below the leadership level — are starting to see an unmistakable shift that they hope leads to a bipartisan agreement to end the shutdown, perhaps as early as next week, according to more than a dozen sources.”

For his part, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) offered Democrats a “15th opportunity” to “do the right thing” and reopen the government.

“We’re concerned that they won’t, and if they reject this for the 15th time, they will be ensuring that this this shutdown continues past the November 1 deadline,” said House Speaker Johnson.

“Let me give you a list of things that this means for the American people: It means that tens of millions of American families will struggle to keep food on the table because the SNAP program benefits will run dry; It means that WIC assistance, that’s Women, Infants and Children, the nutrition programs, will be at risk of running dry; It means that Head Start centers, which serve 60,000 children nationwide, will be at risk of closure,” he warned. 

“Millions of federal workers — and we’ve listed them here every day — you’re talking about air traffic controllers and TSA agents and park rangers and border patrol agents, law enforcement around the country, the stewards of our nuclear arsenal will miss their paychecks,” Speaker Johnson added.

HS Mike Johnson is right. It is time for Democrats on Capitol Hill to reopen the government.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)