After 43 days, the longest US government shutdown in history has come to an end.
Federal workers will once again receive paychecks. National Parks will reopen to the public. Government services that had been either curtailed or entirely suspended will resume operations. Air travel, which had become a source of considerable frustration for many Americans, will revert to its usual state of inconvenience.
Now that the dust is settling and President Donald Trump’s signature on the funding bill is dry, it’s pertinent to ask: What did this record-setting shutdown achieve? And what were the costs incurred?
Senate Democrats, through the utilization of the parliamentary filibuster, managed to trigger the shutdown despite being the minority party in the chamber, effectively blocking a Republican measure intended to temporarily fund the government.
They established a firm stance, demanding that Republicans agree to extend health insurance subsidies for low-income Americans, which are slated to expire at the close of the year.
When a handful of Democrats broke ranks to vote in favor of reopening the government on Sunday, they gained comparatively little in return – a promise of a Senate vote on the subsidies, but without any guarantees of Republican support or even assurance of a necessary vote in the House of Representatives.
Since then, members of the party’s left wing have voiced considerable discontent.
They’ve accused Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer – who abstained from voting on the funding bill – of either being secretly complicit in the reopening plan or simply demonstrating incompetence. They felt their party capitulated despite recent election successes that indicated they held the upper hand. They feared that the sacrifices made during the shutdown were in vain.
Even more mainstream Democrats, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, have characterized the shutdown deal as “pathetic” and a “surrender”.
“I’m not coming in to punch anybody in the face,” he told the Associated Press, “but I’m not pleased that, in the face of this invasive species that is Donald Trump, who’s completely changed the rules of the game, that we’re still playing by the old rules of the game.”
Newsom, with potential presidential ambitions for 2028, can serve as a reliable indicator of the party’s sentiment. He has been a staunch supporter of Joe Biden, defending the former president even after his widely criticized debate performance against Trump in June.
If he is agitating for change, it doesn’t bode well for Democratic leadership.
For Trump, the period since the Senate deadlock was broken on Sunday has seen his mood shift from cautious optimism to outright celebration.
On Tuesday, he congratulated congressional Republicans and hailed the vote to reopen the government as “a very big victory”.
“We’re opening up our country,” he stated during a Veteran’s Day commemoration at Arlington Cemetery. “It should have never been closed.”
Trump, perhaps sensing the Democratic discontent with Schumer, joined in the criticism during a Fox News interview on Monday night.
“He thought he could break the Republican Party, and the Republicans broke him,” Trump said of the Senate Democrat.
While there were moments when Trump appeared to be relenting – last week he criticized Senate Republicans for their refusal to eliminate the filibuster in order to reopen the government – he ultimately emerged from the shutdown having made minimal substantive concessions.
Although his approval ratings have decreased over the past 40 days, the midterm elections are still a year away. And, barring a radical constitutional overhaul, Trump will never have to face the electorate again.
With the end of the shutdown, Congress will resume its standard legislative agenda. Despite the House of Representatives having been largely inactive for over a month, Republicans still hope to enact significant legislation before the next election cycle commences.
While several government departments will be funded until September under the shutdown-ending agreement, Congress must approve spending for the remainder of the government by the end of January to avert another shutdown.
Democrats, smarting from their perceived defeat, may be eager for another opportunity to challenge the opposition.
Meanwhile, the issue that sparked the conflict – healthcare subsidies – could become a pressing concern for tens of millions of Americans who face the prospect of their insurance costs doubling or tripling by year’s end. Republicans who fail to address this voter anxiety risk political repercussions.
And that’s not the only challenge confronting Trump and the Republicans. A day that was intended to be marked by the House government-funding vote was instead dominated by the latest revelations surrounding the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Later on Wednesday, Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva was sworn into her congressional seat, becoming the 218th and final signatory on a petition that will compel the House of Representatives to hold a vote mandating the Justice Department to release all its files pertaining to the Epstein case.
This development prompted Trump to complain on his Truth Social platform that his government-funding success was being overshadowed.
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” he wrote.
It served as a stark reminder that even the most carefully crafted plans and political strategies can be derailed in an instant.
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