Well, they did it. Even after President Donald Trump telegraphed that they were walking into a trap by shutting the government down, Democrats slammed the red button anyway. How's the messaging on that going? Let's just say it's not going very well.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) kicked off a "Stop the Republican Shutdown" live stream overnight, and it may be the least-watched political event in modern history.
As morning approached, the live stream was creatively renamed "Stop the Republican Shutdown Pt. 2," with various Democrats rotating through to shake their fists at the sky. When "transgender" Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) took the podium, a whopping 38 people were tuning in.
In a country of around 320 million people, those viewership numbers seem...less than ideal.
They aren't surprising, though. There is no rational argument to be made that Republicans are responsible for this shutdown. A clean continuing resolution, which means it did not cut anything, passed the House, and Democrats blocked its passage in the Senate (with two Democrats crossing the aisle). Had they not filibustered, the government would be open today. That's as clear-cut a chain of responsibility as you can get, and it seems Americans aren't very interested in their mental gymnastics.
None of this is setting up well for Democrats. When I wrote on Tuesday that they are walking into a trap, I wasn't being hyperbolic.
SEE: Democrats Are Walking Into a Trap
It was written in bold letters, rhetorically speaking, that Trump would take full advantage of any shutdown to cull the bureaucracies. With one now underway, hundreds of thousands of government workers, almost all of whom are Democrats, can be fired with little or no recourse. Meanwhile, very little will happen that Americans will notice other than a few bathrooms closing and some interns being laid off, leaving Republicans no real reason to make any real concessions.
Just how badly are Democrats losing the narrative war? Even The New York Times is framing this shutdown as their fault because there's no other rational way to frame it.
Maybe there's some genius brewing behind the scenes, but this entire gambit seems like one big self-own to me. In the end, Democrats aren't going to get their NPR funding and healthcare for illegal immigrants, but they could lose a big part of their bureaucratic power base, all so that Jeffries and company can go on YouTube to speak to 38 people. The best I can say about that strategy is that it exists.
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