Instead, it’s just the latest example of a longstanding approach to governance on the right. Near the end of Trump’s first term, the president and his party shut down the government for over a month in a futile attempt to pressure Democrats to provide more funding for a border wall—increasing suffering in the hopes of achieving a policy goal whose utility was largely symbolic. It didn’t work then because it never does. But that’s all Republicans really have to offer.
In the case of the flight cancellations, Duffy and others in the Trump administration likely believe that making the shutdown worse will force the Democrats to fold, for a simple reason: The Democrats are the only ones who are actually interested in functional governance and in minimizing Americans’ pain and misery. As with expiring SNAP benefits that are causing millions of households to flood food banks, Republicans hope that Democrats will come to the table and drop their demands solely out of their solemn duty to keep the government operational—even if it is being operated by people who view most of the country with contempt, or worse.
Whether in the White House or outside of it, Democrats have often yielded to this kind of hostage-taking. During a number of previous government shutdowns, they negotiated in good faith with a Republican Party that was off the rails long before Trump arrived on the scene. In these instances, the Democrats have almost always been negotiating against themselves, dropping demands and doing little with their political leverage in part because they were the only people who were concerned about the damage caused by a shuttered government.
