Dems to Base: Drop Dead

Democrats are fighting so ferociously to keep the federal government closed, it's as if they were trying to kill a GOP-sponsored scheme to exempt The Top 1% from the income tax. Au contraire, congressional Republicans uncharacteristically are trying to keep Biden-era federal spending cruising on auto pilot, with neither reductions nor reforms.

But that's not good enough for House Democrat chief Hakeem Jeffries or Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer — both New Yorkers.

Jeffries plus 209 of 211 (99.1%) House Democrats who voted said Nay to the GOP's "clean," no-strings-attached continuing resolution (CR) on September 19. Among the 218 House Republicans who voted, 216 (99.1%) said Yea.

Among Senate Republicans, 52 of 53 (98.1%) have voted consistently to re-open the government. (Kentucky's Rand Paul dissents.) At most, three of the Democrats Caucus' 47 members (6.4%) have done likewise. Unfortunately, it takes 60 votes to pass this spending plan. Even a unanimous vote of all 53 Senate Republicans would require seven concurring Democrats to smash Schumer's filibuster and adopt the House's "clean" CR.

Democrats are so desperate to blockade the GOP Senate that they keep throwing their favorite constituencies — the keystones of their base — under the bus.

Between September 19 and October 28, Senate Democrats voted thirteen times to shut down the government and keep it shuttered, even as Republicans repeatedly invited them to underwrite their most loyal supporters. Rather than re-open the government, Schumer & Co….

• …spurned Food Stamps, never mind that SNAP recipients are 46.7% Democrat — not quite double the 26.8% who are independents and 26.5% Republicans, according to December 6, 2024's JAMA Health Forum.

• …blocked a bill by Senator Ron Johnson (R - Wisconsin) to pay crucial federal employees during the shutdown. Democrats opposed compensating career federal civil servants who, in 2019, were 50% Democrat — again, nearly double those who were Republican (26%) or independent (24%), as the National Bureau of Economic Research reported in April 2021.

• …denied paychecks to air-traffic controllers. So what that their union endorsed Kamala Harris for president in August 2024? To "Get Trump," Democrats are using the American people as human battering rams. Unfortunately for Democrats, the American people are getting battered. And recent polls confirm that they are not amused.

Democrats' job approval stands at 26%, while 67% disapprove, according to an October 22 Quinnipiac University survey of 1,327 registered voters (error margin: +/- 3.5%). That puts Democrats 41% underwater. If they surface too swiftly, they could get the bends.

For Republicans, Quinnipiac measured 35% approval and 59% disapproval.

Meanwhile, as CNN's Harry Enten relates, since the shutdown began, President Donald J. Trump's approval is up by 1%. The GOP's overall net popularity has increased by 2%, while congressional Republicans, at the eye of this storm, have seen this figure increase by 5%.

The GOP Congress' net approval has grown by 8% among independents and 12% among Republicans, who applaud their own team's performance. GOP voters are pleased, for once, not to watch the invertebrate former Senate Republican "leader" Mitch McConnell of Kentucky surrender to Democrats more quickly than a French buck private awakened by German Girl Scouts.

Schumer and Jeffries are in huge trouble when the head of a bureaucrats' union tells them to stop goofing off and give back to Americans the government for which they pay trillions in taxes.

"Reopen the government immediately under a clean continuing resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues," Everrett Kelley, president of the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees wrote in a withering statement on Monday.

It's past time for Democrats to stop torturing the American people. They should junk the shutdown and negotiate with Republicans on healthcare and other matters. Let GIs pay their bills and air-traffic controllers focus on landing planes rather than kiting checks.

With any luck, Democrats have learned this lesson: Making Americans scream in agony is no way to govern. After all, this is not the Spanish Inquisition.

© 2025 Deroy Murdock