Democrats bruised after a historic ruling produce few results

After 43 days, the longest U.S. government shutdown in history is coming to an end.

Federal workers will start getting paid again. National parks will reopen. Government services that had been reduced or entirely suspended will resume. Air travel, which had become a nightmare for many Americans, will once again become simply frustrating.

Once the dust settled and the ink from President Donald Trump’s signature on the funding bill dried, what did this record-breaking shutdown accomplish? And how much did it cost?

Senate Democrats, through their use of the filibuster, were able to trigger the shutdown despite being in the minority in the chamber by refusing to accept a Republican measure to temporarily fund the government.

They drew a line in the sand, demanding that Republicans agree to expand health insurance subsidies for low-income Americans, which expire at the end of the year.

When a handful of Democrats broke ranks to vote to reopen the government on Sunday, they received almost nothing in return: the promise of a Senate vote on the subsidies, but no guarantee of Republican support or even a necessary vote in the House of Representatives.

Since then, members of the left wing of the party have been furious.

They accused Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer — who did not vote for the funding bill — of being secretly complicit in the reopening plan or simply incompetent. They felt like their party had retreated even after their off-year electoral successes showed they had the upper hand. They feared that the sacrifices made for the closure had been for nothing.

Even more mainstream Democrats, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, called the shutdown deal “pathetic” and a “capitulation.”

“I’m not coming to knock anyone,” he told the Associated Press, “but I’m not happy that, in the face of this invasive species that is Donald Trump, who has completely changed the rules of the game, we are still playing by the old rules of the game.”

Newsom has presidential ambitions for 2028 and can be a good barometer of the party’s mood. He was a loyal Joe Biden supporter who turned out to defend the then-president even after his disastrous June debate performance against Trump.

If he shows up, it’s not a good sign for Democratic leaders.

For Trump, since the Senate deadlock broke Sunday, his mood has shifted from cautious optimism to celebration.

On Tuesday, he congratulated congressional Republicans and called the government’s reopening vote a “very big victory.”

“We are opening up our country,” he said at a Veterans Day observance at Arlington Cemetery. “It should never have been closed.”

Trump, perhaps sensing Democrats’ anger toward Schumer, joined the crowd during an interview on Fox News Monday night.

“He thought he could break the Republican Party, and the Republicans broke it,” Trump said of the Democratic senator.

Although there were times when Trump appeared to relent — last week he chastised Senate Republicans for refusing to abandon the filibuster aimed at reopening the government — he ultimately emerged from the shutdown having made few substantive concessions.

Even though his poll numbers have declined over the past 40 days, there is still a year before Republicans face voters in the midterms. And, barring some sort of constitutional rewriting, Trump will never have to worry about running for office again.

With the end of the closure, Congress will return to its usual programming. Even though the House of Representatives has been effectively paralyzed for more than a month, Republicans still hope to pass substantive legislation before the start of next year’s election cycle.

While several departments will be funded through September as part of the deal ending the shutdown, Congress will need to approve spending for the rest of the government by the end of January to avoid another shutdown.

Democrats, licking their wounds, may be yearning for another fighting chance.

Meanwhile, the issue they fought over — health care subsidies — could become a pressing concern for tens of millions of Americans who will see their insurance costs double or triple at the end of the year. Republicans ignore responding to these voters’ suffering, at their political peril.

And that’s not the only peril facing Trump and the Republicans. A day that was supposed to be marked by a government defunding vote in the House was dedicated to the latest revelations regarding the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Later Wednesday, Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva was sworn in to her congressional seat and became the 218th and final signer of a petition that will force the House of Representatives to hold a vote ordering the Justice Department to release all of its records on the Epstein case.

It was enough to prompt Trump to complain, on his Truth Social website, that his success in government funding was being overshadowed.

“Democrats are trying to revisit the Jeffrey Epstein hoax because they will do anything to distract from their poor record on shutdowns and so many other issues,” he wrote.

All of this is a stark reminder that the best-laid plans and political strategies can be derailed in a flash.

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