Who's to Blame?
Monday--3 November 2025
The shutdown of our—the American, the US, government has now dragged on for over a month. It’s hurting many people.
As Bill Maher note on his show Friday, the Dems could end it by agreeing to the GOP continuing resolution. The GOP could end it by voting out the filibuster in the Senate.
If either side can end it, who’s really to blame?
Filibuster
For the GOP to end it by voting out, in the Senate, the filibuster rule that requires 60 Senators to vote to end debate and proceed to a vote on an issue. The majority party—at the moment, the Republicans (by a small margin)—can change the rules and wipe out the requirement for a super majority to end debate. But every time a party is in the majority, they remember and fear the powerlessness that goes with being back in the minority—and thus don’t want to end this power with what’s known as a “nuclear option” (changing the rules)—because it’d likely change the nature of Senate debate for both parties into the future. Trump has declared he wants the GOP to end the filibuster—but it’d be a drastic step.
More on the filibuster—
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/31/politics/filibuster-senate-trump-explained
Agreeing to the Continuing Resolution (CR)
As Trump and the GOP have said, loudly and often, the Dems could just vote for the CR that would keep the government functioning for some specified temporary stretch while budget matters are debated and negotiated. Why not do this?
The Democrats argue, reasonably enough, that agreeing to continuing to negotiate requires the prospect of actual negotiating. If the GOP insists on keeping in place all the provisions of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” then quite dramatic increases in health insurance premiums will start soon. And the Dems will have no more leverage to stop that later than they do now—so if they want to fight it, they must fight now. If POTUS Trump-Speaker Johnson-Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the rest of the GOP won’t negotiate over that now, why would anyone think they would negotiate over it in a few weeks?
Negotiate?
To get to the possibility of negotiating, honest dialogue is needed—and both sides have to want to negotiate.
According to the GOP/Trump (and even posted declarations on agency websites, despite doing so violates the Hatch Act), the Democrats are demanding that foreigners get healthcare benefits and food stamps, so these “aliens” will vote Democratic in the future. This is such an absurdly dishonest claim as to be laughable, were it not such a serious matter. Such aliens/foreigners are not now and never have been eligible to get such benefits—and Democratic legislators know that full well. Note especially the long quote below from a person working in the field.
The GOP has been quite loud and repetitive in declaring that the Democrats are the sole reason for the shutdown, as well as that the Dems just want the budget to include money to benefit trans with sex surgery for children and the like. “Dishonest” really isn’t a strong enough word for this blatant set of lies.
And the Democrats are not lying when they point out that the GOP will not even pretend to negotiate. For any meaningful negotiation to happen, the US House has to be in session. Speaker Mike Johnson
won’t even pretend to call the House into session. This is reportedly because if he did, he’d then be forced to swear in newly elected Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona, Adelita Grijalva—
Why would that be a problem for the GOP? One hypothesis, seemingly well supported, is that Johnson fears seating her because she has declared that she’ll sign on to the discharge petition on releasing the Epstein files. And she’d be the final one needed to do that, forcing a vote on it in the House. The GOP could vote it down but would be on the record if they did.
Given the absurd dishonesty of the GOP and the Democrats lack of leverage with anything other than embarrassing the GOP with a shutdown, it’s hard to imagine ay serious negotiating breaking out any time soon.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/who-is-adelita-grijalva-and-why-hasnt-she-been-sworn-in-to-congress-yet
Couldn’t Dems Just Agree to the CR and Let the GOP Take the Blame?
If the Senate Democrats simply voted for the Continuing Resolution (and any subsequent ones) and let consequences such as dramatically higher health insurance premiums kick in, couldn’t they then make a convincing case that the Trump-led GOP were making the wrong decisions? That is essentially what James Carville has recommended to the Democrats: “Roll over and play dead, “ as he wrote in February. (Link at end of this section.)
First, such a capitulation would indeed hurt millions of Americans and perhaps the Democrats sincerely cannot bear to let that happen.
And second, it seems quite likely both that the GOP would brazenly lie and claim it was the fault of the Democrats and that a great many voters, especially MAGA supporters, would believe the lies.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5150545-james-carville-democrats-play-possum-trump-musk/
Is There Another Sense that At Least Some Blame Should Attach to the Democrats?
My good friend Duke Johnson, who agrees with me that blame for the shutdown primarily and properly falls on Trump and the GOP, noted another dimension to all this: As Karine Jean-Pierre declares in the book she has written, Independent (2025), the Democrats have become
. . . a party whose leadership has been so incredibly disappointing in the way it treated Biden, in the way it quietly hazed Harris, and more recently, in the way it has responded to the Republican assault on our democracy in a shockingly weak manner, veering from shambling to shambolic. (p.3)
At least it must be said that the Democrats did not do an ideal job of opposing Trump. I haven’t yet read her book (Duke gave us a copy and I will), but her subtitle alone (see cover, above) implies that she blames the Democrats in part for giving us Trump.
If she’s right, then the Democrats are at least partly to blame for Trump gaining power—and causing the shutdown.
Will It End Soon?
The governments shutdown will, I’m afraid, persist quite a while longer. The Democrats are eager to make clear who the villains really are, as well as, one hopes, to protect millions of citizens. The Trump GOP thinks, perhaps correctly, that the voters will buy the bologna it’s selling and support the anti-government goals of Trump-Speaker Johnson-Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the rest of the GOP. Russell Vought may get his way, institute Project 2025 fully, and destroy the effectiveness if not the democratic ways of the federal government.
The voters, and only the voters, can change this. And I’m not sure we can or will.
And it may be too late if we patiently wait until November of next year.
https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/5586144-government-shutdown-snap-aca/
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/democrats-schumer-shutdown-pocket-rescission
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/10/30/congress/shutdown-deal-thune-deadline-appopriations-rescissions-obamacare-00629484
https://cepr.net/publications/roadmap-to-the-shutdown/
From Facebook via Nextdoor and unfortunately I don’t know who to credit—
I have been employed in the social sevices field since 2018. For 7 and a half years. Foodstamps and Medicaid is literally my JOB. 1st and foremost undocumented immigrants have ALWAYS been INELIGIBLE for benefits. The first thing we are required to verify is citizenship or legal status. Please stop with the narrative that all the benefits are going to illegals bc that has NOT EVER been the case. I understand what you see on the news and in your “for you “ pages. But I am personally in these trenches 5 days a week. If you see someone in a grocery store with a food stamp card, they either have the status to legally get it, or they are using someone elses (which is an argument for another day) Just bc they look the way they do or maybe do not speak english, that does NOT mean they are here illegally. Secondly, the majority of the clients we serve are white. This also should not matter, but since non-white people are being accused of taking all the benefits, let me also clear that up. Thirdly, the majority of our clients are…. Shocker here, so make sure you’re sitting down for this one….EMPLOYED. That’s right, they work. If they dont, they themselves are disabled or have severely disabled children.The cost of living has in no way shape or form kept up with average wages. So yes, they need help. You’ve got people making $13 an hour when average rent in our area is easily $1k plus. If you make $1040 biweekly before taxes, one paycheck is actually less than your rent. And this is not even including utilities, car payments, gas for your car, and household incidentals like laundry powder, toilet paper etc. Dont even get me started on daycare costs. And heaven help our disabled clients that have to make an amount similar to this one paycheck, last for an entire month. I say all of this to to basically break down that I am personally disgusted and appalled by all of the hate and belittling. A lot of y’all need a reality check. If you have never needed benefits then good for you 👏👏👏 but a lot of people do, and for good reasons that they are in no way shape or form mandated to explain to you. The majority of people in the US have less than 5,000 in savings and that is being generous. At all times, we are literally one step away from needing the benefits yall are currently laughing about. All it takes is one layoff. One heart attack. A stroke. A car accident. Hell even an unplanned pregnancy can tip the scales out of your favor in an instant. Im not ashamed at all to say there was a time where foodstamps and medicaid got me thru. I was a single mom, in college, and despite working TWO jobs at the time I still fell short. These benefits supported me and my son so that I could take the steps to build us a better life without having to worry if we were going to eat that day. Unless you’ve had to make a choice between food and diapers, I suggest you sit this one out. People are scared. And rightfully so. If you’re so worried about “fraud and abuse” within the system, please feel free to start a business and pay your employees an actual decent living wage so that you can say you contributed to making a world a better place. If you do not have the means to do the above mentioned situation, kindly hush your mouth, and maybe go donate to your local food bank 😄 Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Rant over .
Note: Anyone may copy and publish what I or my guests write, provided proper credit is given, that it’s not done for commercial purposes, that I am notified of the copying (you can just leave a comment saying where the copy is being published), and provided that what we write is not quoted out of context or distorted.
Thanks again for reading Letters … . Subscribe for free (always) to receive new posts and support my work.
Another reason, but one not getting much attention, for Democrats not supporting a CR so that negotiations can start, is that they are rightly concerned that Trump will either veto a compromise bill or rescind whatever funds both sides agree to if Trump were to sign a bill. And Trump refuses to commit that he won't rescind the money if appropriated.
Who's to blame? The same white supremacist voters, over 77 million of them, who enabled Trump 2.0, that's who.
We wouldn't be here talking about the shutdown, now that the race was decided last November: same script, same National Nighmare, same howling racist voters..