Carl Hulse of the New York Times does a good job of highlighting two major factors that have convinced the congressional Democrats to force a government shutdown. Both of them are based on trust. The first relates to President Trump’s threat to retaliate by firing federal workers.

Democrats believe they have a powerful message on health care, with some Americans set to face soaring premiums unless Republicans agree to extend federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. They shrugged off Mr. Trump’s threat to engage in the wholesale firing of federal workers, saying he would do so regardless of the status of government funding.

From the outset of Trump’s second term, he has used DOGE to arbitrarily and crudely downsize the federal workforce, often by ignoring the express wishes of laws passed by Congress and even rulings made by the courts. It’s not that the Democrats don’t take Trump’s threat seriously, but more that they don’t believe the threat is conditioned on them closing the government. Trump will do it anyway. For this reason, the threat has no coercive force.

The second factor bears a similar logic:

And Democrats do not see much benefit in providing the votes for a temporary spending extension, since Mr. Trump and his budget czar, Russell T. Vought, have already demonstrated that they are willing to spend federal dollars — or not spend them, as the case may be — however they want, no matter what Congress says.

They have so far done so with little pushback from Senate Republicans.

“How could we negotiate a bipartisan agreement and then have the president unilaterally through impoundment, or the Republican Party through rescissions and the president unilaterally through pocket rescissions, undo it all without any input,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, asked as he explained Democratic resistance.

To understand the problem here, you have to realize why government shutdowns happen. It’s about passing spending bills to fund the various agencies. When Congress can’t agree to spending levels, they usually pass resolutions to keep the government running at already established levels. This is what the GOP is requesting now. They argue that more time is needed to hammer out compromises with the Democrats. So, why are the Democrats resisting this?

It’s because the administration has repeatedly demonstrated this year that it simply does not give a shit what spending levels Congress has passed, which is another way of saying that they are not honoring previous compromise agreements. If, as Schumer said in his painful legislative-speak language, the White House won’t spend the money they’ve been directed to spend and the Senate Republicans will go along with this, then cutting a deal with the Senate Republicans on spending is meaningless.

In plain language for political novices, the Republicans are demanding that the Democrats negotiate but at the same time saying that they have the power and the right to ignore any agreement that is made.

Where things get a little confusing is that the Democrats have decided not to make this rather potent argument the main focus of their defense. While the logic is unassailable, it’s complicated and hard to convey to the American people in pithy sound bites. So, the Democrats are planting the feet in defiance on the issue of cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies. This polls well because people don’t want to pay a lot more for or simply lose their medical insurance. But, by making this about a legislative demand rather than a separation of powers issue, they open themselves up to criticism that they’re shutting down the government in a desperate effort to reverse a political loss.

However the public ultimately perceives the shutdown, the main point I’m making here is that the Republicans were unable to deter the Democrats from initiating a shutdown because they issued threats that have no juice. The Democrats have no reason to believe that any concession they can make will protect federal workers or that any agreement they can make will be honored.

As I’ve mentioned before, there is an additional problem. There is no way for the Democrats to morally fund many of the activities of this government. The Pentagon is murdering people on the high seas and kidnapping people and sending them to prisons in random foreign countries, all without due process. The Justice Department is issuing spurious indictments of innocent public servants to satisfy the president’s thirst for revenge. The Department of Health & Human Services is issuing junk science medical recommendations. Democrats are being illegally kicked off agency boards like the Federal Trade Commission. Much of this violate either domestic and/or international law or treaties ratified by Congress.

Ultimately, elected Democrats have to fund the government, but they risk becoming a kind of Vichy government to fascist overlords. Instead of upholding the Constitution, they can become a fig leaf that gives a false impression of normalcy and legality to a criminal administration.

This is the element that cannot really be solved by people like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. They’re in a bind because of the positions they hold. It’s up to the American people to fix this, rather than the minority party in Congress. Elected Democrats have a job to do, which is to help set spending priorities, and they can’t get far by simply refusing to do it.

Still, showing some resistance and reluctance to rubber-stamp criminality is the bare minimum we can expect. My problem is mainly that making this all about health care insurance is off topic. It polls well, I’m sure, but it doesn’t put the real question to the American people.

And, in the end, the government will be reopened whether or not the Democrats get any concessions. And the simple act of reopening it will in some way legitimize the whole process.

It’s an unhappy situation for the Democrats. They have no winning moves. But I have to say that I’d rather they shut down the government and refuse to reopen it until they’re assured that there will be no more “impoundments” “rescissions” or “pocket rescissions.” In other words, they should demand that any deal they make will be kept. I think the American people can understand this basic demand very well, even if the details are complicated.

I’d also like an end to kidnapping and murder. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask.