Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
GOP Losing Government Shut-Down Battle
The government shut-down is into its second week, and the polling around it is depressing if one is a MAGAt. The American people blame the Republican't Party more than the Democratic Party by a significant margin. The pressure has yet to be felt at the White House, but the members of the House and those Senate incumbents facing re-election next year are getting the message. Because Speaker Johnson has sent them home, the House membership is getting an earful in their districts. While this could go on for weeks yet, the way this is breaking is clear. The best thing the GOP can do is cut a deal and move on. The longer it takes, the worse it will be for them.
USA Today, hardly a radical left-wing samizdat, reported today "The CBS News/YouGov poll, conducted between Oct. 1 and Oct. 3 among 2,441 adults, found that 39% of respondents believe Trump and congressional Republicans deserve the most blame for the shutdown. Thirty percent of respondents blame Democrats more, and 31% blame both equally."
An Economist/YouGov poll taken just after that showed "More Americans say that Republicans in Congress and Trump are most responsible for the shutdown than say Democrats in Congress are (41% vs. 30%); 23% say the two parties are equally responsible."
That is only to be expected. The Republican'ts control the House, the Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court. They could pass whatever they wanted today. The claim that they need 60 votes in the Senate is a canard. The US Senate can change its rules at any point, and if the GOP wants to do so, the Vice-President in his role as President of the Senate can ignore the parliamentarian and ram it through with 51 votes. There are Senators who do not want to lose the filibuster on both sides of the aisle, and they are a problem. They are why there is a shutdown.
For now, the GOP leadership is fighting the messaging war, desperately hoping the poll numbers can be reversed. That is not how previous shut-downs have gone. Once the mood of the country breaks a certain direction, it only grows. The number of people who support the GOP and who blame Democrats is almost identical. In a country where the largest growing voting bloc is allegedly independent voters, that is bad news for the right.
The Democrats have nailed their colors to the mast of healthcare, one of the few areas where they know what they are doing. They are holding up everything to protect Medicaid, Medicare and the medical facilities that rely on that funding. The non-MAGA voters understand that.
One of the ways professionals know who is losing in a shut-down is to listen to the offers made in the media. When one side (in this instance, the Republican'ts) starts demanding a “clean CR,” it means they know they are losing. A clean continuing resolution is not well-understood outside of DC, but it simply means that the government continues spending at previously approved levels; it extends the old agreed spending past the end of one fiscal year and into another. A party only wants that if it cannot get anything else. It is a way to prevent losing, but it denies them the chance to win. The Republican't Party is going to need a little more time to come to grips with this, but they have already demanded a clean CR for days.
The Economist/YouGov polling data also shows "Democrats have a 5-point lead over Republicans in registered voters' preferences for the 2026 U.S. House elections: 44% say they would vote for the Democratic Party candidate and 39% for the Republican Party candidate, if the elections were held today." At that level, even some gerrymandered seats are in play.
The decline under the Trump administration continues to accelerate.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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