Even without a partial shutdown, there is the clinking sound of broken glass as President Trump goes in for cuts after cuts in key programs, causing job losses and public hardship.
New Delhi: The shutting down of parts of the US government for two months in 2017 proved a political liability for President Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 Presidential polls to Joe Biden. However, this time around, Trump has no intention of fighting for a second term, as he has made explicit. Hence, he has nothing to lose from that point of view if the present shutdown continues for several weeks. It is a contest of wills as to who will concede first, President Trump to the demand of the Democratic Party that certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act be given a fresh lease of life, or enough Democrats ease their opposition to Trump’s proposal and allow the funding bill to pass.
For “strongman” Trump, to concede would be to appear weak in the eyes of his supporters, and he may have memories of the 1984-85 coal miners’ strike that was broken by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the UK, thereby earning her the sobriquet of “Iron Lady”. As for the Democrats, to agree to the Trump cutbacks would be to sacrifice the interests of their lower income backers in affordable healthcare, which would have a severe knockdown effect on the votes secured by them in the coming 2026 US midterm polls. President Trump has labelled this the Democratic Senate Minority Leader “Schumer lockdown”, while the party has tagged the responsibility for the shutdown on the obstinacy of President Trump, or the “Trump lockdown”.
Even without a partial shutdown, there is the clinking sound of broken glass as President Trump goes in for cuts after cuts in key programs, causing job losses and public hardship. Trump is betting that such hardship would almost entirely be experienced by the Democratic base and turn them away from the Party, and the 2026 midterms will show whether he is correct or not. Politics aside, the pre-shutdown job cuts already implemented by President Trump are causing mass job losses and public suffering. His niece Mary wrote a bestseller about her uncle Donald when Biden was President, in which she accused her uncle of completely lacking in empathy, and the job cuts and mass firings are being used to claim she was right. President Trump has always sought to downsize the government substantially, and a prolonged shutdown may provide him with the opportunity to implement such a policy. For causing the ensuing job cuts, President Trump could blame the “Democrat shutdown” and not his own inclination for making such cuts.
Geopolitically, President Trump appears to have steered the US into a minefield. Because of his tariff demands, even close allies of the US are seeing their voters questioning the wisdom of such a policy. Gaza and Ukraine remain conflict zones, while the US economy has been making a downward turn even before the shutdown. The Epstein files remain majorly secret, despite claims by Trump that he never took advantage of intimacy with the underage girls Epstein used to entertain his friends. Meanwhile, his tariff threats are having unwelcome consequences for his own voting base. Because of the tariffs, China has switched from the US to Argentina to buy soybeans from, thereby causing hardship among US soybean cultivators. Ironically, Trump is favourable to Argentina, even unlocking US assistance for that country.
In Gaza, Israel has been gearing up to fight a long war, even as it begins the (some would say impossible) task of clearing Palestine of the terror hubs that have proliferated in Gaza in particular. How long the cessation of hostilities enjoined by President Trump on Israel will last is uncertain. Russia under Putin is finally securing the military advantage over Ukraine, which is steadily losing territory as a consequence. Even after the most vituperative of statements by Trump against Russia, the response has been polite indifference. Meanwhile, the borders of the EU are no longer safe from Russian air intrusions, and the threat of a kinetic war looms over countries that have not fought one for several decades.
More than any foreign adventure, what counts for US voters is what is taking place at home. President Trump has trifled with the US Constitution by entering into the space reserved for the states, that too without their concurrence. In his talk to the US generals assembled together for the first time in modern history, President Trump said that their foremost priority was to “secure the homeland” through use of armed force wherever necessary. Several of the generals were disturbed at the implications of the US military having as its main focus fighting a part of its own citizenry. The speech was overtly political, even though involvement in US politics while on active duty is frowned upon by those in uniform.
Institution after institution is witnessing unprecedented and usually unwelcome changes in their functioning. Larger and larger parts of the Republican voter base are getting disadvantaged. Many voted for President Trump in 2024 in order to have the better life he promised. The reverse is taking place. Important parts of the Department of State, to take an example, are being whittled away to oblivion. The International Visitors Program meant to familiarize what the department considers future leaders has been scrapped just before many IVP invitees were to board their flights for the US. So far, Secretary Rubio has been quiet about the diminution in US influence and in his own department, but for how long remains a talking point within his staff. Every day brings some fresh disruption, most of them unwelcome to those affected.
President Trump is thus far delivering the reverse of what he had promised during the campaign, a better life. Except for the wealthy, who have had an unprecedented tax cut that would further bloat the deficit of $38 trillion and counting. How many of them voted for Trump remains unknown, not that their votes (assuming they voted at all) would have counted in the victory tallies. Meanwhile, as the test of wills goes on with the Democrats, backers of the President are asking themselves whether the time for them to bail out has come or is soon coming. Books will be written and movies made about the transformation in the US caused by Trump 2.0. At present, the odds are rising that they will be about as flattering to President Trump as the book on him written by his niece Mary.
