The Republican Party has not just won the political fights (so far), but they are winning the culture, too.
No longer do they have to worry about the lamestream, liberal media defaming them. They have social media on their side, with Elon Musk running the X (Formerly Twitter) ship of state. Big Media has little power now, and President Trump has forced Republicans to enjoy living in the limelight for once.
Why was the 1995-1996 shut down a PR failure of sorts for the Republicans? It’s not fair to blame Newt Gingrich too much. After all, Republicans had not held the Congressional House majority since 1952.
They needed to get used to holding the reins of government, and for the first time in fifty years, politicians were taking real steps to cut the spending and restore faith in the federal government’s ability to govern. It was not the easiest fight, and Newt Gingrich ended up resigning after Republicans failed to capture a stronger majority post-election 1998. The House did impeach Bill Clinton, good for them, but they were always going to face a brick wall with the US Senate, where 67 votes were needed to fire Bubba, and a handful of Republicans crossed over or voted “not proven” to give themselves a break.
By the way, Election 1996 went well for Clinton, but Republicans also performed very well, capturing three additional US Senate seats!
Subsequent shut downs have not hurt Republicans, either, in part because more voters are paying attention to the unsustainable debt issues plaguing the country. Voters already hold Congress in low esteem as it is, but if members of either party are willing to fight for what they believe in, even if it means a shut-down, it doesn’t seem to hurt them.
Now, with Republicans keeping more of their campaign promises (Thank you, President Trump!), they have more of the cards. The Big Beautiful Bill was a big, beautiful win for the GOP not just because they accomplished key extensive priorities, but they also provided the necessary funding in advance so that any future shutdowns would not thwart President Trump’s efforts to secure the border, cut taxes, end red tape, and restore our military.
In fact, if Democrats in the United States Senate refuse to give the necessary seven votes to invoke cloture and move the latest Continuing Resolution forward, they will be the ones shutting down the government. The House gave a clean CR, no extra gimmicks or cuts, to the Democrats, so they can’t complain about any more cuts to the federal largesse. To his credit, JD Vance complained about a clean CR, since more spending reductions are needed, but the government needs the funding to get through to the end of the year.
What is really striking, though, is that the Democrats are ready to shut down the government over some of the most perverse, misplaced priorities imaginable. They want to increase the Obamacare subsidies, but not just for Americans—for illegal aliens. They also want to restore funding for so-called “gender-affirming care,” i.e. the sexual mutilation of children under the guise of transgenderism.
What is this madness?! Thirty years ago, the Republicans got a lot of grief from the press because they wanted to cut spending across the board, get the federal government back to a lean budget—which it should. Today, we have the minority party prepared to shut down the government to give our money to anyoe and everyone else but American interests.
Someone should ask the Democratic Party what the long-term plan is here. Who are they trying to persuade? Republicans made no demands for further cuts (they score a great deal of cultural wins with the Big Beautiful Bill), and Democrats want to cater to foreign nationals and child predators.
This is a lose-lose-lose strategy for the Democratic Party. Add to all of this the fact that President Trump is prepared to unleash unprecedented mass firings in the event of a government shutdown, workers who will not have to be rehired once the funding is restored! President Trump is in the win-win-win circuit, and there is nothing that the Democrats can do about it.
All the negative campaigning from public or corporate media cannot help the Democrats, either, since no on believes them or cares what they have to say. President Trump presided over the longest government shutdown in history in 2018, and the vast majority of Americans lived their lives without any troubles. Where federal bureaucrats failed to keep the basics going, American citizens stepped in and compelted the tasks, all but demonstrating that the federal government spends too much, does too much (and does it poorly), and is still too much looming in our lives.
In the past, Republicans wouild get blasted because they wanted to cut spending.
Now the Democrats are getting blamed because they want to spend money on everything but Americans. This divide can help our fight for fiscal discipline while holding the Democratic Party accountable for the profligate spending.
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