It’s exceedingly hard to predict the political consequences of unpopular government shutdowns.

I read Audrey Fahlberg’s report on how the White House and congressional Republicans are “confident that Democrats will be blamed for a shutdown” with interest — and with a skeptical eyebrow raised at the politicians’ confidence.

The basic positions of the two parties are as follows: Republicans want a “clean” continuing resolution that extends government funding at current levels (the only new spending would be for extra security for government officials following the recent spate of political violence). Democrats, on the other hand, are offering “a continuing resolution that’s chock-full of unrelated policy priorities, such as reversing the reconciliation bill’s public broadcast funding cuts and Medicaid reforms.”

It’s the Democrats who are, in Audrey’s description, “trying to run a House Freedom Caucus-inspired playbook to attach completely unrelated demands to a continuing resolution in exchange for their votes, a strategy with a poor track record of policy and political success.”

That’s all correct of course, and yet, I’m still not sure Republicans are right to be so confident.

In the first place, it’s been my long-held view that, as a general rule, government-shutdown fights haven’t had significant long-term political consequences. Oh sure, voters hate both parties for their squabbling. And they usually “blame” the party that’s holding out on keeping the government funded (in this case, that would be the Democrats) and “support” the party that wants to keep the government running.

The public “blamed” Ted Cruz and Tea Party Republicans for the 2013 shutdown — but then Republicans went on to win the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. The public “blamed” the 35-day December 2018 to January 2019 shutdown on President Trump for demanding border-wall funding — but by the time the public went to the polls in November 2020, shutdown politics had faded into the rearview mirror and had been swamped by pandemic-era controversies.

In short, macro factors usually assert themselves over the short-term political soap opera, and I find it hard to believe that macro factors won’t have a determinative effect on how the public would see a shutdown and — more importantly for the politicians — the two parties when the public heads to the polls in 13 months.

Secondly, the American people are very, very frustrated with the current sluggish state of the economy, inflation, high prices, and job creation. And we ought to take that into consideration when we weigh the fact that Donald Trump dominates American politics. “The Trump Effect” has changed the way people see, internalize, and evaluate politicians.

That’s part of why this is such a dangerous political moment for Trump. It will be hard for the president — who emphasizes his success, “the best economy we’ve ever had,” etc. etc. — to shift blame to the other party precisely because he’s a larger-than-life political figure, especially in comparison with the pygmies who currently lead the Democrats in Congress (last spring, a full 37 percent of Americans had “no opinion” of Hakeem Jeffries, 23 percent said that of Chuck Schumer, and even 30 percent said the same of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; only 2 percent of Americans had no opinion of Donald Trump).

If the government is shut down and the press ramps up coverage of — pick your headline — national parks shutting down or air-traffic-controller shortages or long lines at passport offices, frustration will naturally fall on the president, a man who has been front and center in American life for a decade promising that “I alone can fix it.” If Washington appears to be out of control and failing to do its job, who exactly are not-particularly-partisan, low-information voters going to blame?

And remember: While a shutdown (if we have one) isn’t going to push America into a recession all on its own, for ten years, Donald Trump’s superpower has been that he has convinced a majority of the American people that he can get the economy moving. That superpower will become his kryptonite if people begin to look up and wonder why Trump’s economy isn’t roaring.

Republicans are right to stand against the extra spending that Democrats want right now (not that Republicans have been fiscally responsible themselves, of course), but that’s a very different thing altogether from predicting the political consequences of such a stand if it results in a politically unpopular government shutdown.