Last week, the US Senate narrowly avoided a federal government shutdown after a small number of Senate Democrats backed a Republican-drafted bill. In this Q&A,Thomas Gift analyzes what it says about the new party dynamics in Congress, how Democrats are trying to get back on their feet against Trump, and what federal funding cuts mean for some of America’s elite universities.
What did you make of the Senate averting a shutdown last week, after Senator Chuck Schumer and other Democrats voted for a Republican bill to fund the government?
Schumer said a shutdown would be “DOGE on steroids”—and he’s right. It would only encourage more spending cuts by Washington and leave public servants without a paycheck. Politically, the one thing we can say: Democrats clearly aren’t in lockstep about how to confront Trump. Half the party wants to go into full-on resistance mode. Half the party fears looking obstructionist and hypocritical for engaging in the same kind of brinkmanship they’d accused Republicans during President Joe Biden’s tenure. Schumer coming out in favor of the stopgap bill served as a permission slip for moderate Democrats to vote yes. That’s all it did. While he still faced plenty of backlash, you could argue that Schumer really had no other option. Democrats say this bill will slash spending by about $7 billion. Importantly, it also doesn’t stop Elon Musk from trying to stall congressionally mandated spending. But the alternative—Democrats likely being held responsible for a shutdown—may have been politically even worse.
Republicans in Congress seem to be rubber stamping all of Trump’s initiatives. Is that right?
No question: This is Trump’s government, and Republicans in Congress are just along for the ride. It’s worth considering how we got here. In the Federalist Papers, the American founders were extremely concerned about tyranny by Congress. They worried that because Congress was “closer to the people” and set the budget, it could be the most dangerous branch. But instead what we now see in modern day politics is Congress forfeiting much of its authority to an “imperial presidency.” Trump isn’t a total outlier. I think you can trace the roots here to Richard Nixon in the 1970s, which began with the Watergate Scandal. What we’re left with isn’t a system of checks and balances between coequal branches of the federal government. Instead, we only have checks and balances across political parties. Republicans on Capitol Hill are simply partisan cheerleaders for Trump. We saw that with support for Trump’s controversial cabinet nominees. Now we’re seeing it with legislation.
Democratic politicians have been staging a major “blitz” of town halls in Republican districts . What’s this about?
The data are clear: Democrats aren’t resonating with Republican, rural voters. Nationally, the party’s approval rating just slumped to just 29 percent, a record-low. So, anything to bring the Democrats’ message closer to “red” America should be encouraged. The real concern is that most of the politicians showing up at these town halls, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are the few progressive leaders who’ve already demonstrated that they can reach across the aisle. To be fair, a small number of Democrats are trying to appeal to a different audience. Ironically, maybe the most aggressive effort is coming from California. Gavin Newsom has launched a podcast, and among his two early guests were Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA and former Republican strategist Steve Bannon. I understand the concerns about platforming these individuals, but Democrats need to extend beyond their comfort zones if they want to draw in new voters. There’s a world beyond MSNBC.
One of the hardest hit industries from the federal government downsizing is higher education. How are US universities responding?
Cutting federal funding has been absolutely devastating to universities. Harvard has enacted a temporary pause on new staff hiring. Johns Hopkins is cutting more than 2,000 jobs. Columbia is losing $400 million in research grants. These are some of the wealthiest universities in the world, with billions of dollars in endowments. So, you can only imagine how impactful budget cuts are outside the most exclusive schools, which don’t have a financial safety net. I think this is just the start of a broader attack on higher education. Universities have become ground zero for the culture wars. Vice President JD Vance has said explicitly “the professors are enemy.” Many in Trump’s inner circle are itching for a fight against any institutions they perceive as “woke.” Backlash against DEI and anti-Semitism has already triggered investigations of dozens of universities by the Trump White House. Universities might soon face taxes on their endowments, new regulations, and other efforts to hold their feet to the fire.