Victor Davis Hanson
The longest shutdown in congressional history last autumn achieved almost nothing other than hurting the Trump economic agenda—and, indeed, the fourth quarter 2025 annualized GDP was later revised downward due to the shutdown. Now again in 2026 there have been two additional shutdowns, the second still continuing and already the second longest in history and affecting only the Department of Homeland Security—but not the separately funded ICE which is the target of the Democrats’ ire.
The Democrats, along with lower-court federal judges, are de facto seeking to nullify the election of 2024 in which they again lost the House and the Senate. Without enough votes in the House to stop the hated Trump, they either cherry-pick left-wing anti-Trump district court judges to injunction him into stasis, or they shut down the House in tantrums—anything other than offering a Democrat blueprint for America that would resemble something like the status quo in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, or New York.
Ostensibly the Democrats want to defang ICE by demanding all sorts of restrictions on its activities and making officers while on federal duty subject to state and local prosecutions. The real cause of the shutdown, however, is 1) to emasculate border security and, when back in power, to rekindle the influxes of the Biden years that saw 10-12 million illegal aliens crash the border; 2) once more to slow down the economy and create chaos as a force multiplier of the uncertainty surrounding the Iran war (note Democrats have little care that there are reports of Iranian sleeper agents and terrorists in our midst at the time they are defunding much of Homeland Security).
In these contexts, one can see that in their blanket opposition to the Voter ID (SAVE America) Act, House minority leader Hakem Jeffries and his party are willing to sabotage the entire airline travel industry by suspending pay for TSA employees. And when Trump initially ordered ICE to replace TSA workers who had quit in disgust at not being paid, Jeffries claimed ICE might hurt or kill passengers at security checks, while other Democrats whined that they might harass and arrest boarding illegal aliens.
Again, consider the irony that since May of 2025 “REAL IDs” or a passport have been required as identification for flying inside the U.S. And to obtain a REAL ID, Americans must verify their identities in a number of ways, including presenting a birth certificate. So, why would any Democrat believe that an illegal alien could legally fly within the U.S. without a real American ID—unless he had a foreign passport?
Shutting down the government now three times joins the past nihilism of impeaching Trump twice and trying him in the Senate as a private citizen. Or waging lawfare, civil and criminal, in five courtrooms. Or seeking to deballot Trump in 25 states. Or raiding Trump’s private home to find 102 purported classified documents out of some 13,000 seized. Or creating both the Russian collusion hoax and the Hunter Biden laptop disinformation campaign. Or creating a climate of hysterical Trump hatred that has lowered the bar on the permissible and helped lead to two near assassinations of Trump.
Again, the common denominator? The Democrats have no alternative agenda. Gavin Newsom never points to his high-speed rail project, or his efforts to rebuild Pacific Palisades, or the price of electricity, gasoline, and houses in California, or the quality of the public schools, or the crime rate—because he knows that he and his party have no answers to the problems that ultimately they created. Newsom has the un-Midas touch, every good thing he inherited from his predecessor turned dross at his touch.
So in lieu of ideas and policies, the Democrats no longer trust the electorate to vote in their agendas. Instead, they find their power in other ways, through the lower federal courts that block Trump initiatives, or the media, academia, popular culture, and the corporate boardroom to push unpopular green or DEI or trans policies, or importing new poorer, dependent constituents that favor redistribution policies that 51 percent of Americans do not.
In sum the Democrats’ agenda is nihilistic, an effort to ignore the wishes of the majority of Americans and find power instead through the non-elected and the administrative state selling an agenda that no one wants—not trans, not open borders, not illegal immigration, not defund the police, not the Green New Deal.
Discussion (6)
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Log In to CommentI have little patience for people that have no interest in what our political leaders are advocating. Today, I was in a local market and saw that they sell the Epoch Times newspaper. I said to a nearby checker, that I was very pleased that they carried this paper because it was pro-U.S. constitution. She quickly made it clear that she does not like to talk politics. I retorted just as quickly that supporting the U.S. constitution is hardly "talking politics" and it has served us pretty well for nearly the past 250 years. Our conversation ended with that. To what she said was equally as dumb as somehow believing that saying our pledge of allegiance is "talking politics".
I agree with Mr. Tucker’s comment above. The US has a plethora of uniformed voters who have no knowledge of US or world history. The Democratic Party and those in congress are either totally incompetent or simply without conscience. It will be a battle for the psyche of our country to change.
Well said, VDH, as usual. Please continue to expose the Democrats and their self-serving actions across our land. No sound thinking citizen should ever again vote for a Democrat!
Quote. Someone must want it, perhaps almost half the electorate. The (D) win often enough that Congressional (R) majorities are always precarious — a lot of bitter folk in the U.S. /Quote. Or, the elections have been corrupted. That's my guess, and it would explain why the Democrats are so opposed to the SAVE act.
We are so screwed as long as low-information voters are taken in by the Democratic Party demagoguery.
"(Democrats) find their power in other ways... selling an agenda that no one wants..." Someone must want it, perhaps almost half the electorate. The (D) win often enough that Congressional (R) majorities are always precarious -- a lot of bitter folk in the U.S.