The shutdown is here, and Americans everywhere are wondering, “What now?” The answer is simple: Democrats need to wake up and recognize when they’re flogging a losing argument. Their demands—$1.5 trillion in new spending, a permanent extension of COVID-era emergency programs, and taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants—aren’t just unreasonable, they’re politically toxic. These are not winning issues, and no amount of finger-pointing at Republicans is going to change that.
On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance went on Fox News to address what he bluntly called the Schumer Shutdown. As usual, Vance delivered a sharp, commonsense breakdown of the situation. His first point was on the shutdown itself—reminding viewers that Republicans had already passed a clean funding bill, and it was Democrats who chose to block it:
Our vice president noted: You don’t shut the government down because you have a policy disagreement. These are two separate questions. There are essential services that have already been appropriated, where we’ve already agreed, you know, we want our military to have a certain amount of payment. We want air traffic control to have a certain amount, we want to ensure that a certain number of people are able to access food benefits. You don’t shut down the government because you have a policy disagreement over a totally separate issue and that’s what the Democrats have done, and it really is astonishing.
To go back 20 years, and pretty much the entire time, that I’ve paid attention to American politics, I have seen Democrats stand before the American people and say, “You don’t shut down the government because you’re not getting what you want.” And here they are, last night, the far-left faction of Senate Democrats, they shut down the government.
Why? Because they’re not getting what they want. And what makes it extra preposterous, if you actually listen to what they say, they say they want to ensure that it’s a premium support program under Obamacare, that they want to keep going. Well, that premium support program doesn’t even expire until next year. So why are you shutting down the government on October the first because of a program that doesn’t even expire for another few months? Let’s talk about it, let’s negotiate, let’s do what you do in Washington, D.C., don’t shut down the government because you don’t get what you want. That’s exactly what Senate Democrats have done in this case.
Of course, there’s one key motivation behind the Democratic obstruction that even Vice President Vance didn’t spell out: blind hatred of Donald Trump. That’s really what drives them. “Orange Man Bad” has become their governing philosophy, and if that means throwing up roadblocks to the administration at every turn—even at the expense of the country’s best interests—they’re all in. It’s not a winning message, but rationality isn’t exactly the Democrats’ strong suit these days. When the conversation turned to Democrats’ demand for taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens, Vance’s remarks grew even sharper. He reminded viewers that extending benefits meant for American citizens to people who broke the law to get here is not only absurd but an insult to the taxpayers footing the bill:
He noted: This is a Democrat talking point. They say, “We’re not actually trying to give health care benefits to illegal aliens,” and here’s why it’s not true. There are two Biden-era programs that explicitly gave the taxpayer health care money to illegal aliens that we turned off when President Trump took over in January. Program number one is there’s a lot of emergency healthcare at hospitals that are provided to illegal aliens that was funded by the federal government. We turned off that funding, and because of course we want American citizens to benefit from those hospital services, not to be taxed, and then to have those hospital services go to illegal aliens.
