The political class in Washington wants you to believe the sky is falling. Every time the government nears a shutdown, Democrats screech that America is about to collapse. Yet the last few weeks have proven the exact opposite. Public opinion is not with them, and they know it.

Why? Because ordinary Americans aren’t stupid. They see what Democrats are fighting for, and it isn’t safer streets, secure borders, or more freedom. It’s more “free stuff.” The Democrats have gone to the wall to preserve and expand subsidies for the Affordable Care Act—a program that feels “free” only because taxpayers are forced to underwrite it. When politicians scream that a shutdown will “harm” Americans, what they mean is it will interrupt the handouts that keep their coalition addicted to government dependence.

Meanwhile, President Trump is making noises about doing what no president has had the courage to do—actually eliminating entire swaths of government that serve no useful purpose to the American people. Agencies that have long been bloated bureaucracies, producing red tape instead of results, could face the budget axe. That isn’t a threat to the American way of life; it’s a return to it.

And here’s the kicker: most Americans agree. A majority—certainly the majority that voted Trump into office—want a smaller government, not a larger one. They are tired of working harder only to watch their taxes siphoned off to fund programs for people who aren’t eligible, who won’t work, or who break the law just to get here.

Democrats, in defending the shutdown, find themselves on the shakiest of political ground. They are forced to stand in front of microphones and argue that high-crime cities aren’t really that dangerous, even as carjackings, assaults, and murders surge in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York. They are forced to excuse the violence of mobs targeting ICE officers, simply because they dislike immigration enforcement. They are forced to downplay the sympathy too many on the left have openly shown for Charlie Kirk’s killer. And now, as if that weren’t enough, they are fighting for expanded taxpayer-funded health care for those who never should have been in the system in the first place.

That’s not a winning message.

Contrast it with what Americans actually want: defended borders, safe and livable cities, secure campuses where open debate is possible again, and an end to subsidies for freeloaders. It’s not a complicated agenda. It doesn’t take a congressional supercommittee to figure it out. People want law, order, and fairness. They want their tax dollars to protect their communities—not bankroll the reckless fantasies of a progressive base that equates dependency with compassion.

The irony, of course, is that every time Democrats howl about a shutdown, they inadvertently prove conservatives’ point. If government is so “essential,” why is it that most Americans barely notice when it closes? When the 1995 shutdown occurred under President Clinton, pundits predicted chaos. Instead, people realized they could go about their lives without the Department of Education micromanaging schools or without some obscure regulatory office issuing fines. During Obama’s shutdown standoff in 2013, Democrats closed monuments and parks to generate photo ops of veterans being turned away. But those stunts backfired because the American people could see through the cheap theater.

Now, in 2025, the pattern repeats. Democrats insist disaster is upon us. But ask an average working family what’s changed in their daily lives. Aside from fewer IRS agents sending threatening letters and fewer bureaucrats writing new regulations, life goes on. And in many cases, it goes on better.

The real crisis is not a shutdown—it’s what happens when Democrats are in charge with a blank check. The last time they held full control, they spent trillions, fueled inflation that crushed middle-class families, ignored border security, and let cities burn. That wasn’t governance. That was malpractice.

This shutdown, by contrast, highlights how shallow and cheap their politics have become. They don’t want to debate crime, or immigration, or free speech on campus—because they know they’ll lose. So they scream about “essential services” when the only service they’re really desperate to protect is the endless flow of subsidies to keep voters hooked.

The American people see through it. They know their neighborhoods are less safe. They know their campuses are less free. They finally have secure borders. And they know that the Democrats’ definition of “free” means the bill is just waiting in their mailbox.

So when Democrats ask, “Don’t you see how dangerous this shutdown is?” the natural response of millions of Americans is simple: Where’s the downside?

Because if shutting down the government exposes waste, reins in subsidies, and reminds us that life is better when Washington is smaller, then the real danger isn’t in closing it down—it’s in letting Democrats keep it open.

Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join Townhall VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!