Did Democrats achieve anything?

Moderate Democrats have finally broken party ranks to reopen the government. 

What was the purpose of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history? What did Congressional Democrats want? Did they get it?

“Democratic unity fractures, paving the way for the government to reopen,” explained Stephen Collinson for CNN on Monday. “A Sunday night Senate deal may be on the verge of resolving the longest government shutdown on record — after a group of moderate Democrats dropped their key demand — a guaranteed extension of Obamacare subsidies.”

Translation: The shutdown is over. Democrats failed to wring any concessions from Republicans in Congress.

There has been much weeping and gnashing of teeth from progressive-leaning news outlets in wake of the news.

“Senate Democrats Just Made a Huge Mistake,” lamented Jonathan Chait for The Atlantic on Sunday. “The conventional wisdom about government shutdowns is that they always fail. Senate Democrats probably assumed as much when they shut down the government. Perhaps they thought they were giving partisan activists something to root for, even fleetingly, before eventually caving. That was a reasonable, if somewhat cynical, calculation.”

“The Democrats got the shutdown they wanted, and no one is happy,” complained Christian Paz for Vox. “The longest government shutdown in modern American history is about to end, after a handful of Democratic senators this weekend decided to provide Republicans enough votes to pass a short-term funding plan that would keep the government running until the end of January 2026.”

“While there’s not much for Democrats to write home about in this deal, it’s also not clear that they could have ever really won the showdown — or any of the concessions they were originally making,” Paz admitted.

The biggest loser in the shutdown debacle is likely to be Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Some Washington insiders beleive Sen. Schumer went along with the shutdown theatrics in order to stave off a potential primary challenge. Sen. Schumer has likely lived in fear of primary ouster since his esteemed colleague Joe Crowley was unexpectedly defeated by a progressive upstart named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018.

Self-avowed Democratic Socialists and progressive “Squad” members have defeated other incumbents in the Democratic Party. Moderate Democrats and the Democratic Party establishment fear the hyper-progressive wing of the party almost as much as they fear Republicans.

Democratic Party leadership also knows how powerful the appeal of Democratic Socialists and their ilk can be. None better. Else, why would the Democratic Party have required Sen. Bernie Sanders to sign a waiver promising not to run against the Democratic Party candidate as an independent if Sanders failed to win.

If the shutdown was orchestrated to help Sen. Schumer stay in his Senate leadership position, it has likely failed.

“Shutdown Cave May Be End of Schumer As Senate Leader,” predicted Ed Kilgore for The New Yorker yesterday. “Across the Senate map, opposition spanned Schumer’s handpicked recruits — who’ve been largely silent about the shutdown — to the insurgents who’ve called for his ouster.”

“But what probably seals Schumer’s fate is simply his expendability,” Kilgore went on ruthlessly. “Less than a week ago, Democrats were exited and united following a 2025 election sweep in which every party faction did its part. Now pundits and Republicans are the ones excited as Democrats appear on the brink of yet another struggle for their soul.”

“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) posted to X. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”

“So, knives are out, it looks like, for Chuck Schumer,” news correspondent Laura Ingram asked President Donald Trump on Monday night. “Ro Khanna’s already calling for him to be replaced. What message do you have for Schumer tonight?”

“Well, I think he made a mistake in going too far,” President Trump replied, before clarifying: “Well, it just went too far. He thought he could break the Republicans, and the Republicans broke him. But he did think that.”

“I feel badly, because I’ve known Chuck Schumer,” Trump added. “I knew him when he was a person who loved Israel. And now he’s a Palestinian. He’s become a Palestinian. And it’s amazing. I’ve never seen a politician change so much.”

It’s obvious that Sen. Schumer did his best to truck with the more extreme elements in his party. It is also clear that all Schumer’s compromises, including on Israel, aren’t going to save him.

“Democrats begin calls for Schumer’s ouster after some in his caucus fold on shutdown fight,” crowed Lindsey McPherson for the Washington Times on November 9.

“Well, this whole shutdown was a fool’s errand from the start,” said FOX New’s Brit Hume on a recent episode of Special Report with Bret Baier. “This strategy has been tried a number of times before where you try to use the government shutdown and the pressure to get the government reopened as a lever to get something done you couldn’t get done by the normal process because you didn’t have the votes. It has never worked.”

“It was never going to work,” he added. “And, you know, the Democrats, yes, there was some polling that indicated that the Democrats were less, were getting less of the blame than the Republicans. But remember this, key elements in the Democratic Party, American Association, American Federation of Government Employees, the Teamsters Union, the Airline Workers Union, the Pilots Union, they were all urging that the Republican measure, the temporary measure, be passed.”

“And, of course, as the air traffic situation began to get worse and the deprivation of SNAP benefits set in, it became absolutely untenable, which when you think about it, it really was from the start,” he explained. “It really wasn’t about enhanced ACA benefits. It was about Democrats wanting to position themselves in resistance and opposition to Donald Trump in every way they could do or appear to do.”

“What changed the ‘principled stance’ Democrats had been taking?” wondered Derek Hunter sarcastically for Town Hall. “The election happened. That’s it, that’s really all it was. If this had happened before the vote, there was a chance some Democrats, the more radical ones, would have stayed home.”

“Democrats rage as funding bill heads to House,” Jared Gans reported for The Hill on Tuesday. “Democrats from both chambers of Congress and differing wings of the party are furious after eight Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to advance a measure to reopen the government.”

As the funding bill heads to the house, it is likely to pass without much difficulty.

“It appears to us this morning that our long national nightmare is finally coming to an end, and we’re grateful for that,” declared House Speaker Mike Johnson. “At least some Democrats now finally appear ready to do what Republicans, President Trump, and millions of hardworking American people have been asking them to do for weeks.”

“As we said from the beginning, the people’s government cannot be held hostage to further anyone’s political agenda,” declared Speaker Johnson. “That was never right, and shutting down the government never produces anything. It never has, if you study history — and so here we are.”

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)