What is Schumer's shutdown endgame?

Democrats are in what chess players call zugzwang, where there aren't necessarily any winning moves. But focusing on tariffs and inflation would be a better approach than Schumer's plan.

Quickish newsletter today, mainly to allow subscribers an opportunity to comment on my New York Times story that published this morning on Democrats’ strategy as Republicans seek to pass a government funding bill and avert a government shutdown.

Maybe it’s still the economy (and tariffs), stupid

One of my persistent pet peeves, if you read some of the more partisan-flavored newsletters from Democrats, is the implication that President Trump’s popularity is in perpetual decline. That isn’t the case, or at least it hasn’t been for several months. Trump isn’t popular: the only other modern president with a worse net rating this many days into his term was Trump 1.0.¹ But we diligently track every poll that comes in. Trump’s numbers have been remarkably steady. Since April 8, Trump’s net approval rating has been somewhere between -4 and -10 (rounded to the nearest integer) literally every single day in our average. Predictions that, for instance, Jeffrey Epstein would finally be the thing that took Trump down have consistently proven wrong.

Of course, this pattern should be familiar if you’ve been following politics for … well, the past decade or so. Trump’s first-term approval numbers didn’t move much either, other than when he fired FBI Director James Comey early in his term, and then at the very end after January 6. Head-to-head polls between Trump and Kamala Harris were also extremely steady in last year’s campaign.

You can find one exception to this, however. Apart from Trump’s honeymoon period wearing off very early in his term, the sharpest decline came in April, when he went from a -3 at the start of the month to bottoming out at a -10. We’ve examined the timing of this before, and it seems very likely to be related to tariffs (“Liberation Day” was April 2) and the anxiety they caused for voters about higher prices. Some further evidence for this comes if you look at Trump’s issue-by-issue numbers. His ratings on trade and inflation very sharply declined in April, before rebounding in May as Trump backed off from some of his tariff threats. But plenty of tariffs have been implemented, and he’s now at basically an all-time low on inflation — even worse than April — which is creeping higher.

Why tariffs are the best point of leverage

In the Times story, I argue that Democrats should tie their support for any government funding bill to tariffs — more specifically, to passage of the Trade Review Act, which would allow Congress to reassert its constitutional role in levying tariffs. I see several advantages here: it highlights an issue where Trump is behaving abnormally and violating the separation of powers, but which is still highly legible to voters and indeed perhaps the only thing that has proven to dent his popularity so far. And it could drive a wedge between the various factions of the GOP.

To be clear, I don’t think Trump would ultimately relent. I argue in the story that Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to force Republicans to blow up what’s left of the filibuster, which is already on life support, and which Democrats might want to get rid of anyway should they win back a trifecta (almost certainly by a narrow margin) in 2028.

But I like this approach better than Chuck Schumer’s current plan, which is to tie support for the continuing resolution to health-care-related issues instead, such as an extension of Obamacare subsidies. Health care is generally a good issue for Democrats — but that’s the sort of thing that Democrats might do with a more normal Republican like Nikki Haley or Mitt Romney in the White House. I don’t see how it conveys the message that we’re in unprecedented and/or dangerous times.

I’m also not sure what Schumer’s endgame is supposed to be. One risk is that Republicans might actually take the deal, which would take a good midterms issue off the table for Democrats.

Alternatively, Republicans might agree to something and then claw it back later. It’s hard to negotiate with someone whom you know is acting in bad faith and doesn’t necessarily intend to honor any agreement. In fact, I like Bill Scher’s recommendation to refuse to provide support for the GOP bill on principle, but not to make any specific demands. I just think that entails a high inherent degree of message-discipline difficulty that Democrats probably aren’t capable of at a challenging political moment.

I do think it’s a tough call, though. As friend-of-the-newsletter Matt Glassman points out, strategic shutdowns of any kind don’t have a highly successful track record.

In March, I argued that Democrats should shut the government down over DOGE-related spending cuts just because I thought that was a cleaner play. DOGE was both germane to government spending and focusing on it would highlight the potential unconstitutionality of DOGE’s role and it would be hard for Republicans to argue to reopen the government at the same time that Elon & Co. were trying to starve the beast.

There’s nothing that represents quite the same opportunity this time, I don’t think. Some of the things that might understandably upset constitutional scholars or people like me the aren’t likely to resonate with the public or aren’t related to funding government operations. A free-for-all might be even worse, with every Democrat (many of whom are jockeying for a very open 2028 nomination) highlighting their pet issue to base voters. But Schumer also probably can’t get away with just doing nothing and providing votes for cloture again; his leadership role might not survive it.

An illustration of zugzwang; every move leaves black worse off. Chess.com.

Sometimes you’re in a situation that chess players call zugzwang, where you’d rather pass because any move potentially leaves you worse off, but you’re obligated to do something because it’s your turn. Schumer was too risk-averse in the spring, and while I don’t hate his approach now, when you don’t take your opportunities when you have them in politics, sometimes you just wind up playing for a draw.

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Coming attractions

I don’t usually do this, but since Times columns always bring in new readers, I also wanted to give you a preview of the Silver Bulletin editorial calendar and the variety of stories we’re planning to cover. My priorities for the week:

• Subscriber questions (SBSQ) is going to run this week unless there’s alien-invasion-magnitude news, and yes, you’re still welcome to submit questions.

• Finishing up our new NFL model, ELWAY — I can’t seem to help myself from adding new wrinkles, like accounting for injuries and coaching changes.

• And getting Joseph George’s² first solo byline story published, which might just so happen to be about an extremely tall guy who plays in San Antonio.

Once these features are up and running, I’ll likely have some thoughts on Kamala Harris’s new campaign memoir. I haven’t read her book yet, but I’m hoping it will finally give me the motivation I need to finish the much-delayed final installment of our Harris campaign autopsy. And I have a take on AI progress planned, though I’m not sure whether it will take the form of a review of the new Eliezer Yudkowsky / Nate Soares book. As always, we very much appreciate your support and your subscriptions.

1. Joe Biden was the only other president to be in negative territory at all at this point.

2. Joseph is our new Assistant Sports Analyst.