It was so short that you might have missed it, but the federal government was shut down for less than a day. The Democrats successfully forced a short halt to federal operations over the issue of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in the US, or DACA. While divisive partisanship in the federal government is almost definitionally part of day-to-day politics in the US, a shutdown is comparatively rare. Such a wrench in the governmental machine begs some questions.
Who will the public blame for the shutdown? Exactly how important is the public’s opinion at all? How will it affect the upcoming midterm elections? Regarding the first question, Republicans lost the PR battle in the shutdown incidents of both 1995-6 and 2013, but they weathered fairly small losses in the elections thereafter. Despite the public assigning most of the blame to the Republican Congresses for both shutdowns, Presidents Clinton and Obama both took an approval rating hit for their perceived handling of the incidents. They both recovered fairly quickly, however; indeed, Clinton went on to win reelection in 1996 by a landslide.
This time, since the Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency, there could potentially be greater support for the Democrats as underdogs. However, if past elections are anything to judge by, based on admittedly limited evidence, long-term electoral effects will be minimal.
As far as the importance of public opinion goes, it seems that the public has only short-term influence over approval ratings. Lamentably, eventual (and probably immediate) public apathy is likely, as with so many other issues. The public is used to this kind of political brinkmanship from both parties by now, and people will likely have forgotten about this incident within a month. The public’s short-term memory will fade, and Trump’s approval ratings might take a slight hit based on public reaction.
Democrats will perhaps make gains in the midterms in November based on continuing acrimony towards Trump and his conduct. A compromise in the form of a slightly-tweaked version of DACA is likely, but it must pass both the Senate (the easy part) and the House (the hard part). Compromise among the moderate Republicans in the Senate will be much more likely than among the hardliners in the House.
So, did the shutdown actually accomplish anything? GOP leaders agreed to vote on immigration policy before Feb. 8, which is something; before the shutdown it was uncertain that there would even be a vote at all. The outcome, however, is anyone’s guess. The shutdown also shed light on some currently prevailing political trends. The Democratic base is generally moving farther left; the fact that certain groups were even willing to consider a shutdown as a course of action attests to that. Republicans are sharply divided on immigration; moderates want some kind of DACA provision or compromise, while Trump and hardliners most likely want to crack down.
The issues of immigration and race are more intertwined and incendiary than before. Politicians of both parties are digging in rhetorically, each blaming the country’s problems on the other’s stance on immigration.
While the shutdown may not have much impact on policy, it does have a lot to teach us about the current state of partisanship in American politics and the value of compromise.
