Everyone understands how stupid a move it will be for Democrats to follow through on their threat.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A president loathed by his enemies has been reelected. His bitterest foes — still smarting at the president’s inexplicable return to office — are baying for blood, demanding some sort of show of resistance. Lawmakers know better; as members of both the opposition and the minority, they know they lack the power to set any sort of agenda. But their base is enraged, and are demanding they act. How? Who knows? All anyone can agree on is that this is the sort of situation that absolutely requires a futile and stupid gesture. You know what that means: Buckle up, buttercup, it’s time to shut down the federal government again.

Now ask yourself, gentle reader: Are we still living in 2025, or has America come unstuck in time, like Billy Pilgrim? Because while I am of course talking about the behavior of Senate Democrats right now — as they threaten to filibuster a budget bill that would keep the government open for the next seven weeks — every single detail of what I wrote above applies equally as well to what happened to the Senate Republicans back in 2013, at the start of Obama’s second term.

A refresher for those who have wisely chosen to forget an equally stupid era: Back in September 2013, the Republicans shut down the federal government as part of Ted Cruz’s harebrained scheme to force Obama to “defund Obamacare.” (It was never going to work, and it was a enduringly negative testament to Cruz’s cynicism that someone as smart as him was happy to lie baldly to Republican voters about its chances. It was also an ominous omen of things to come.)

Flash forward to the present day, and I will confess that I am enjoying this lovely Chicago weekend for more reasons than just the glorious weather: The shoe is now truly on the other foot politically for Democrats, and it’s proving to be a mysteriously Cinderella-like fit. For unless things change precipitously between now and Wednesday, Democrats are about to shut the government down in exactly the same way as Cruz did back in September of 2013, with the same long-term plan as his: none. They are making vague demands about extending Obamacare subsidies permanently and spending more on Medicaid — a “health care” framing device for public consumption — but nobody believes that to be anything but a pretext.

Trump is already making hay of the inestimable gift the Democrats have handed him: He publicly declared there would be no negotiations and no compromises, and is presently daring the Democrats to follow through on their threat and walk into a box-canyon. Senate Democrats have exactly zero leverage in this situation — only the power to shut business down — and far greater liabilities than the Republicans did back in 2013 when they assayed this. In 2025, Democrats are quite literally the party of federal government, and would only be harming their own most devoted constituents (particularly in Northern Virginia, which has become overwhelmingly Democratic in the post 9/11 era as federal government growth metastasized) by blundering into any sort of extended shutdown.

Trump knows exactly how much of a winning hand he holds, and is determined to make the Democrats suffer for their folly. (“We’re going to extract maximum pain,” said one anonymous administration official, sounding like a dentist preparing to drill without anaesthetic.) The Office of Management and Budget has already prepared reduction-in-force plans for anticipated mass firings, and I can think of few things Trump will enjoy doing more than seizing the centerstage with a shocking federal government chainsaw massacre. If you have learned anything over the past eight months, it is that the man lives for the opportunity to orchestrate moments like these, and now the Democrats have gift-wrapped him an opportunity to look like an avenging champion to his diehard base. (Just imagine the Truth Social posts this man is about to write.)

Perhaps the single most notable detail about this impending own-goal is what ultimately distinguishes it from the Republican shutdown in 2013: Nobody in the Senate Democratic conference actually seems to want this. In 2013 Republicans were dragged along by furious voices on talk radio demanding radical solutions to Obamacare, but the primary instigator really was Senator Ted Cruz, who singlehandedly goaded his entire caucus into shooting itself in the foot. Were it not for Cruz trying raise his Q factor among the base in anticipation of a presidential run, then the 2013 shutdown never happens.

Meanwhile, everybody — and I do mean nearly every serious political commentator I can think of, including Democratic partisans, and most lawmakers grumbling behind the scenes — understands how self-defeatingly stupid it will be for Democrats to shut the government down. There is no “leader” of the “let’s shut down the government” movement on the left, no analogy to the role Cruz played. Instead, this is happening because the base demands it.

That is the rhetoric you are hearing from Democrats behind closed doors: We have to do something to show our voters we’re still fighting. Shorn of any actual ability to fight back – not because they lack legislative power, but because they lack ideological cohesion or mass appeal – they have chosen this in their powerlessness: a tantrum that will only result in their own ox being gored. (What are these people thinking, threatening Donald Trump with a government shutdown? This man had a cabinet member send a letter offering to accept the resignation of every member of the federal government only eight months ago.)

In any event, it’s bold strategy, and we’ll see if it pays off for them. Keep an eye on Wednesday, when the clock officially runs out on funding. I have a feeling the shutdown is going to happen, myself, and I can’t wait — I’ll finally get to enjoy one of these! Perhaps Democrats believe they can win the spin wars, and convince the country that a Republican-controlled legislature and president simply decided to shut the government down for mischief’s sake. But I doubt it. And in the meantime, Donald Trump is prepared to make as much mischief as his enemies stupidly give him an opening to do.