It was a shaky strategy, at best - a month ago. Now, it's helped Donald Trump as much as it can. Time to move on.

As President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump celebrate a picture-perfect Halloween at the White House, the Democratic Party is, as ever, in disarray.

In an interview with progressive media personality Jon Stewart this week, former Vice President and also-ran Kamala Harris stunned the veteran host by maintaining that she never lost confidence in President Biden’s ability to serve another four years as president.

“I believe he was fully competent to serve,” the former Vice President said levelly.

“Do you really?” a stunned Stewart replied.

“I do,” replied Harris.

“That surprises me, actually,” Jon Stewart rejoined, speaking for all us.

But Mr. Stewart was less surprised to hear Kamala Harris confess that she, like him, has no idea who is running, or is supposed to be running the Democratic Party at the moment.

The pair made a joke out of it, but it isn’t funny.

Not really.

Not to the millions of Americans being held hostage by Congressional Democrats and their shutdown. Between an insatiable desire for more government spending, the urgent need to fend off primary challenges from party upstarts, and a north star impulse to attack Donald Trump, Democratic Party leaders in the House and Senate are refusing to fund the government at its current levels of spending.

Which, of course, are astronomically high enough.

When Congressional Democrats forced through the healthcare subsidies they are currently quibbling over in a glut of pandemic-era largesse, they included a sunset provision.

The subsidies, they argued at the time, would be scheduled to end in 2025. They did this to make it look cheaper in the short-term. It was a ploy. But it worked.

Of course, that was back when the Democratic Party fully expected to retain the White House in 2024 and probably take the House of Representatives, too.

That was before President Joe Biden’s infamous June debate against Donald Trump, before a gunman tried to assassinate former President Trump on the campaign trail, before the wave of consequences that “Defund the Police” and “Open Borders” ushered in.

Before a lot of things.

Democrats had a chance to extend these subsidies permanently during the Biden Administration.

But they didn’t.

To be fair, the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party had their hands full. Covering up President Joe Biden’s decline, keeping his insulated at all times from anyone who might tell the truth, running constant interference with the press, donors, the American people, and everyone in between, was a full time occupation.

Fast forward to 2025, Congressional Democrats are trying to peddle the same sort of nonsense story about the shutdown, hoping people won’t notice.

Well, they’ve noticed.

Time was, the Democratic Party ruled the airwaves. They controlled the vertical, horizontal — everything.

Those days are gone.

People don’t trust left-leaning media outlets like MSNBC, CNN, and the New York Times as they once did. Those outlets, once household names for millions of American families coast-to-coast, now have a fraction of the audience they held in 2020.

So when CNN, the NYT, and MSNBC blamed Republicans for this shutdown, Democratic Party stalwarts were the only ones still listening. They agree with the Democratic Party, completely, of course.

But they aren’t going anywhere, anyway.

Die-hard liberals aren’t going to vote for Donald Trump no matter what he does, or Democrats do, or don’t do.

The voters the Democratic Party needs to reach — indpendents, undecideds, libertarians — are not impressed.

“I think privately they understand that by us having a clean CR here, basically we’re not asking for any partisan riders,” Sen. Eric Schmitt told FOX News host Laura Ingram yesterday. “Just reopen the government, allow us to do appropriations bills.”

“The Democrats are opposing that,” Sen. Schmitt added. “Even the liberal media has a hard time covering for them. So I think they know they’re on the wrong side of this issue, but I’m telling you, Laura, they’re just still stuck in this place where it’s fight Trump. It’s the only play they have in the playbook. And they can’t stand that he’s on the world stage and winning and Democrats in Washington are whining. That’s it.”

“Like, that’s what’s going on. He’s bringing, President Trump is going to deliver essentially $15 trillion worth of new investment, manufacturing jobs, respect on the world stage, using all the leverage we have to actually get good deals for the American people, which are tariffs,” he went on. “That policy is bringing in revenue, getting better deals.”

“And so the Democrats can’t stand the success,” he concluded. “All they know is to whine about Trump, but it didn’t work from before. And I don’t think it’s going to work now either.”

Media outlets are reporting that the Democratic Party is wobbling on the shutdown. As well they might. Key allies are defecting. Criticism is piling up. The polling is terrible. Trump is winning the shutdown. The shutdown is hurting people — including key progressive constituencies. Keeping it going longer will do nothing but hurt more people.

This plan has backfired.

Democrats on the ballot next week, and Democrats on the ballot in 2026, better hope Democratic Party leadership has a better one.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)