Democrats Manufactured the Shutdown Crisis — and Their Votes Finally Exposed the Performance
Robert Burgess • November 13, 2025
Their outrage was scripted from the start and the American people deserved better.
For nearly two months, the American people watched a familiar and yet unwelcome Washington, D.C. drama unfold. Democrats stormed onto every cable news set that would book them and insisted that they were fighting with every breath to reopen the federal government. With vigor and conviction, they looked down the lens and stood before constituents across the country and blamed Republicans for the government shutdown. They accused their conservative colleagues of holding the country hostage over something inconsequential all while pounding their fists on the table about unpaid federal employees and veterans standing in lines. They weaved a well-written narrative that was workshopped to cast themselves as the principled adults in the room . . . the responsible party that a nation could turn to and be saved from the cruel actions of the Republicans.
It was a well-rehearsed performance that the American people watched for almost 60 days – loud, indignant, polished, and completely disconnected from reality. Because, when the curtain lifted, the roll called, and the votes cast, the truth became impossible to ignore: Democrats never intended to reopen the government quickly, if at all. They intended to continue weaponizing the shutdown into a political weapon – much like they did with the Executive Branch when Joe Biden was in power – and their own votes proved it to be the truth.
Long before a vote was called or a bill transmitted from the Senate to the House, Democratic leadership tipped their hand. It started in the U.S. Senate a little more than 10 days into the shutdown. Senator Majority Leader John Thune offered a deal to Senate Democrats: vote to reopen the government on the clean Continuing Resolution from the House of Representatives and Thune would promise to hold a vote on the Obamacare subsidies to provide healthcare to illegal aliens that Democrats were desperate to fund. They turned that offer down and ultimately ended up voting against reopening the government more than 12 times.
But this made-for-tv soap opera doesn’t simply take place in the Senate with Chuck Schumer . . .
Enter House Democrats under the faltering and flailing leadership of Hakeem Jeffries. As soon as it became clear that Senate Democrats were going to fold up their carnival and head for the exits, Minority Leader Jeffries realized that it was getting lonely and cold on stage all by himself. So, he did what any self-respecting politician who had just spent 7 weeks telling the American people he wanted to reopen the government if only House and Senate Republicans would let him . . . he and his leadership team advised the Democrat Caucus to vote NO on the Senate legislation to flip the sign on the door of government from closed to open.
That’s right. The House Democratic Whip operation circulated guidance urging Democrat members to vote againstreopening the government – guidance, no doubt, that Democrat leaders certainly didn’t expect the public to see. But when it did hit daylight, it became a huge fault in their positioning and narrative. These were the very same lawmakers who had spent every waking moment telling the American people that if only Democrats were in power, they would reopen the federal government and end the shutdown.
Democrat outrage wasn’t genuine . . . it was scripted. And the American people are ready to change the channel.
So, what ultimately happened?
The House of Representatives voted 222 to 209 to reopen the federal government last night. Nearly the entire Democratic Caucus (less six “vulnerable” Democrats in seats surely to flip Republican in 2026) voted no.
This was not the behavior of civilized, responsible, or principled leaders. This was not behavior of a political party racing to reopen the government. Quite simply, it was the behavior of cold, calculating, and career politicians trying to squeeze maximum political advantage out of a shutdown they engineered. And for all their dramatic monologues and siliques about the urgency of this issue and the need to compromise, they ultimately accepted the exact same deal that would have ended this nightmare a month earlier. The only thing that changed in a month? The amount of damage inflicted on the country during their political theater.
This is the moment where we let commonsense prevail.
Democrats were never negotiating. They were performing. They were manufacturing outrage to generate clicks and views and produce a narrative benefitting them and their political goals. Their talking points were fictional scripting and their votes – the only part of this process that mattered – told the American people the truth . . . Democrats were once again attempting to weaponize the federal government against conservatives.
What makes this even more disturbing to everyday Americans is how completely Democratic leadership controlled this entire charade. Rank-and-file Democrats didn’t vote based on the needs of their constituents, or furloughed federal workers, or veterans waiting for services they desperately needed. They voted based on the needs of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer – leaders who calculated that a prolonged shutdown would hurt Republicans more than it would hurt Democrats.
That was a miscalculation.
The American people saw the contradiction and Democrats’ behavior in both chambers exposed them as willing participants in a political strategy rather than representatives focused on reopening the government. And as if that wasn’t enough, Hakeem Jeffries declared that Democrats had to “…end the speakership of Donald J. Trump” in a moment that perfectly encapsulated not only the unseriousness of the entire operation, but the motive behind it.
Donald J. Trump is not Speaker of the House.
Donald J. Trump is the President of the United States of America.
Jeffries’ line – confused, obsessive, and completely detached from the moment he found himself in – revealed exactly what has gone wrong inside today’s Democratic Party. Even during a shutdown of their own making, their elected leadership couldn’t stay focused on governing. They were too busy thinking about President Trump . . . talking about President Trump . . . campaigning against President Trump. And, in doing so, they reminded the rest of the country that they are fundamentally unprepared to lead the legislative branch of our government.
This government shutdown wasn’t a policy dispute. It wasn’t a clash of competing vision on how best the American people should be governed. It was a performance . . . a performance that ended the moment Democrats had to stop pretending to be outraged, stand-up, and be counted. And when that moment arrived, they voted against reopening the government in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate while insisting publicly that they wanted the government reopened “as quickly as possible.”
They voted against federal workers.
They voted against veterans.
They voted against air traffic controllers.
They voted against TSA agents.
They voted against funding SNAP.
They voted against the American people.
No political party that behaves this way can possibly claim the mantle of responsible governance. No leadership team that demands its members vote to sustain a government shutdown can claim moral high ground. And no one who watched the last several weeks with clear eyes can honestly argue that Democrats are prepared – or even interested – in leading this country.
This wasn’t governance worth of our republic. It was theater and Democrats got caught leaving their scripts on the podium.
Rob Burgess is a national Republican strategist, and Chief Executive Officer at Connector, Inc. – a boutique government relations and political affairs firm with offices in Washington, D.C.