How to lose a government shutdown

It looks like we are getting the fight that Ezra Klein, most Democrats, and most persuadable voters want: Republicans seem determined to let the funding that keeps the government running run out.

And verily I tell you, that there is no one way to win this fight, this “attentional event," as Klein called it, but there is one way to lose it. To lose, all Democrats have to do is act as if reality creates itself.

If we pretend, as liberals and the left so often do, that the press should and must see the undeniable merits of Democrats’ points and the malice of the right without our help, and that yelling at Chuck Schumer is all we need to do, we can only lose.

We have to act like the MAGA in one precise way. We must act as if we are part of the fight, that we have some agency, and we’re not just victims of our often feckless Democratic leadership. 

We must say loudly and proudly, “No dollars for dictatorship,” emphasizing that this fight isn’t just about Trump ripping healthcare from those who need it most to bail out billionaires. It’s also about restoring Congress’s place in our Constitutional order and rejecting the normalization of authoritarianism. 

Why?

We—the news addicts, the overserved, the 20-30% of America who obsess on the news and inform our loved ones—must understand that every one of us plays a role in creating reality.

From the links we click to the posts we share, to the words we say on any platform, to whatever following we have, it all matters. It all makes the reality that the mainstream media will be feeding back to Democratic members, who must be motivated not to cave.

That is the big takeaway I yanked from Marcy Wheeler’s latest video.

The right’s media advantages are not limited to a regime literally trying to police speech, right-wing billionaires rapidly consolidating control of all old and new media platforms, and incentive structures/ algorithms that favor the disorientating frisson that fascists love.

Marcy notes they also have a mob that hounds the mainstream media to yank the narrative in their direction. That mob is especially effective in shaping process stories, like a government funding fight.

Her chart explains this better than I ever could:

As Toni Morrison wrote, “Fascism talks ideology, but it is really just marketing — marketing for power.”

Everything depends on how we talk about this

If I’ve now convinced you that you are an active participant in this fight and that we can focus on changing Democratic leadership later, if they end up caving in disgrace, I’m going to tell you a second way we can lose this government shutdown fight, and that’s to call it a government shutdown fight.

The legendary Anat Shenker-Osorio of Words to Win By explains:

What to call it instead?

Now that our soil has been watered 

Now that our soil has been watered by two of the smartest women alive, let me remind you that Trump is so much more unpopular than the media is willing to understand or convey. His power stems entirely from the elites, who, like him, primarily care about one poll: the stock market. And verily I tell you, the polls are doing a better job of reflecting reality than the stock market.

But that doesn’t mean this will be easy to win, as in everything now, the world is rigged for the right’s pleasure, and the right has key advantages.

As always, we turn to Punchbowl News to know what Republicans want to know, and there are two quotes I want to point out:

1. “Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought have wide discretion over how painful a shutdown will be. Trump can keep hundreds of thousands of federal workers on the job even if they’re not getting paid. Or he can close down huge swathes of the government in order to maximize the pain on the American public — and by extension, Democrats. He can mix and match at will.”
2. “For now, Republicans remain convinced that Democrats – especially Schumer – will fold, if not before a shutdown starts, then shortly afterward.”

Part of the reason Republicans believe this is because they think the Democratic base will act as they have for three years, yelling at our leaders. Notably, we’ve had excellent reasons to yell at them—including the appeasement to fascists on Gaza and the “border.” But we’ve also learned that these divisions are nursed and savored by the right.

We have to be smarter now. And we have to see that MAGA has been smarter about politics than we have been: they recognize their agency, they don’t care about seeming like hypocrites when a larger cause is at stake (in their case: dominating us all), and they’re willing to see “political value in joining a cause.”

Join the cause. Let’s fight to win.

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