Trump Redux: The Death of Democracy, or Overblown Hyperbole?

[SGR]

Recent polling results aren't rosy for Dems - and these results are before they caved on the spending bill.

Trump up, Dems down in new polls - Axios

CNN Poll: Democratic Party's favorability drops to a record low

One problem for the Democrats is a lack of unity and leadership, but nature abhors a vacuum:

Democrats, who overwhelmingly consider Trump too extreme, have yet to consolidate around any one-party leader to serve as a counterpoint. Asked in an open-ended question to name the Democratic leader they feel "best reflects the core values" of the party, 10% of Democratic-aligned adults name New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 9% former vice president Kamala Harris, 8% Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and 6% House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Another 4% each name former president Barack Obama and Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, with Schumer joining a handful of others at 2%.

Hakeem Jeffries was Pelosi's protege and handpicked successor, but he's obviously not getting the job done. He's like a Temu Obama, but with the energy levels and charisma of Ben Carson. AOC scoring highest gives reason for some optimism among Democrats though, as she's much more charismatic and energetic - and I've sung her praises (and predicted her eventual presidency) here before. One thing AOC is really good at, much like Trump, is knowing how to get attention and drive narratives. In a media ecosystem dominated by thousands of podcasts, social media, and short-form video content, attention is one of the most valuable assets to have in politics.

[Jwb]

I think a more convincing indicator that Trump wanted the spending bill to pass (more than he wanted the alternative) was his primary threats directed at Republican Thomas Massie (who voted against the spending bill). It's nothing new between Trump and Massie, and Massie is one of the few members of the Republican party who could lay any legitimate claim to integrity when it comes to fiscal conservatism (in other words, he's garnered credibility within his party), but the threats were probably more for the purpose of keeping other Republicans in line when it comes to passing the bill. When it comes to Schumer, my guess is that Trump saw the in-fighting going on among Democrats, and saw a very easy and cheap way to sow more chaos and discord in their party (he's done this before - remember how he used to publicly tweet complaints about how much Bernie was mistreated and cheated by the DNC? Do I believe Trump gives two-shits about how the DNC treated Bernie? I don't think so.)

Yes, but think about the difference.  He's praising Bernie as an attack on the Dems, but it's an attack that serves his world view.  If he were to articulate the attack on the Dems he's launching by praising Sanders,  it would be that they are corrupt, rig elections, etc.  Things that are firmly already part of Trump's narrative.  What is the articulated version of Trump's attack on the Dems this time?

I think the simpler answer is he praised him because he did something Trump wanted him to do.  Either way,  we agree he did want the bill to pass.  One of the main premises of Schumer's argument was that in fact Trump really wanted a shutdown.  As long as we can agree that is nonsense,  I don't think these differences of interpretation over why he praised Schumer really matter much.  Either way, Schumer's argument is flawed.

There was a polling indicator for that, but I think there's at least a few areas of uncertainty. One of the obvious ones being that we're a long ways (in politics, a lifetime) from the 2026 midterms, and by then many other headlines and stories will probably have eclipsed this one in the mind of voters, so what would the lasting impression, if any really, of this government shutdown be if most (R)s voted to pass the bill and most (D)s voted against it? Another issue, as we've all seen, is that the Dems have recently lacked clear and strong leadership and messaging. If they were to force the shutdown, would they be able to unify in a way that makes their message clear and dominant in the minds of voters, or would Republicans, given that they are much more unified, be able to set the narrative and keep them on the defensive? Another question would be, could the Democrats agree and unify on what concessions they want the Republicans to make to get them to agree with passing the bill, or would just enough Democrats feel enough pressure and vote to pass the bill after the shutdown with little if any concessions from Republicans, with the result being similar levels of Dem disagreement and infighting as we're seeing now (at that point, what would the government shutdown actually gain them politically)?

I can see the argument in favor or against what they ultimately did, and while I agree that voting against it and incurring the shutdown would give the Democrats political leverage - a big unanswered question is: "Could the Democrats have capitalized on that leverage in a way that would make the shutdown worth the pain it would cause?".

Then again, maybe old Chucky doesn't give two fucks about any of this, and just wanted to make sure there would be no conflicts with his book tour next week.

They seem more unified on thinking that Schumer fucked up than I've seen them in a while tbh. Even Jefferies offered Schumer no support.

But yeah,  I think it's hard to say with confidence that the Dems would have managed to exploit this situation to use the leverage they have to get meaningful concessions.  But that's only because of the feckless, risk averse mentality that people like Schumer represent.  It's fine to worry about being blamed for the shutdown,  but does anybody sincerely think that would stop the GOP from doing so if the shoe was on the other foot?

The difference is they're just better at setting a narrative and running with that no matter what until it becomes the truth for enough people for them to win the propaganda war. The line the Democrats could hold,  if they had a backbone,  was that like others have mentioned the GOP didn't accept any input on this bill whatsoever.  They love to talk about negotiating tactics every time Trump says something loopy,  so they should understand this logic pretty easily.  If you want the government to stay open,  and you want our votes to do so, then you need to negotiate.  It's that simple.

"But won't they just cave in a few days??" Possibly. But that goes back to being weak. The Trump admin does not want to have to deal with a shutdown right now,  with all the other plates they have spinning and the chaos being created on the stock market.  That's why Trump is so aggressive about saying if there was a shutdown,  it would only be because of the Democrats etc.  Because they know perfectly well what an albatross that would quickly become for their admin in the meantime,  and if the GOP had to make some concessions, that could become a better option for them than dragging the fight out.  That is,  if the opposition was insistent and unwilling to budge. 

The thing is,  the only kind of leverage the Dems can really hope to get over Trump is through things like this that are going to have a lot of collateral damage. There isn't going to arise some neat,  clean and politically safe way to oppose Trump.  It's going to be a dirty fight,  if it results in anything at all. 

I would just love to hear from anyone who thinks this isn't the issue to try to make that fight out of,  what is? What genuine opportunities do you see coming down the pike for the Dems to finally start acting like an actual opposition party? Or have you just resigned yourself to the idea that they sit by like spectators for the next 2 years while  DOGE continues to gang rape the administrative state? It seems like the highest aspiration they have is to be the perfect victims.

[Weekender]

I think the only thing left to do is let Trump destroy everything and hopefully tarnish the Republican party name to the point where Americans realize they can never be allowed to exist  at any level of power ever again.

I posted earlier that we're beyond any political solution. People will now have to commit to the kinds of disruptive actions that come with the possibility of imprisonment.

I'm not sure how many of us are ready for that. Honestly I think there's a decent chance this is just the end of the line. The country will become a soft autocracy until at least Trump dies, maybe longer depending on his successor.

[Psy-Fi]

[DJChameleon]

He swears he is a king that can do anything. Fucking idiot

[Buck_Mulligan]

You'll note that the tweet or whatever it is, is NOT an Executive Order. It's clickbait.

[Trollheart]

Apart from anything else, Trump can't string that amount of words together without having to have a lie-down and a rant at liberals/trans/DEI/Dems/insert as appropriate in the appropriate bodily orifice.

[SGR]

Yes, but think about the difference.  He's praising Bernie as an attack on the Dems, but it's an attack that serves his world view.  If he were to articulate the attack on the Dems he's launching by praising Sanders,  it would be that they are corrupt, rig elections, etc.  Things that are firmly already part of Trump's narrative.  What is the articulated version of Trump's attack on the Dems this time?

I think the simpler answer is he praised him because he did something Trump wanted him to do.  Either way,  we agree he did want the bill to pass.  One of the main premises of Schumer's argument was that in fact Trump really wanted a shutdown.  As long as we can agree that is nonsense,  I don't think these differences of interpretation over why he praised Schumer really matter much.  Either way, Schumer's argument is flawed.

They seem more unified on thinking that Schumer fucked up than I've seen them in a while tbh. Even Jefferies offered Schumer no support.

But yeah,  I think it's hard to say with confidence that the Dems would have managed to exploit this situation to use the leverage they have to get meaningful concessions.  But that's only because of the feckless, risk averse mentality that people like Schumer represent.  It's fine to worry about being blamed for the shutdown,  but does anybody sincerely think that would stop the GOP from doing so if the shoe was on the other foot?

The difference is they're just better at setting a narrative and running with that no matter what until it becomes the truth for enough people for them to win the propaganda war. The line the Democrats could hold,  if they had a backbone,  was that like others have mentioned the GOP didn't accept any input on this bill whatsoever.  They love to talk about negotiating tactics every time Trump says something loopy,  so they should understand this logic pretty easily.  If you want the government to stay open,  and you want our votes to do so, then you need to negotiate.  It's that simple.

"But won't they just cave in a few days??" Possibly. But that goes back to being weak. The Trump admin does not want to have to deal with a shutdown right now,  with all the other plates they have spinning and the chaos being created on the stock market.  That's why Trump is so aggressive about saying if there was a shutdown,  it would only be because of the Democrats etc.  Because they know perfectly well what an albatross that would quickly become for their admin in the meantime,  and if the GOP had to make some concessions, that could become a better option for them than dragging the fight out.  That is,  if the opposition was insistent and unwilling to budge. 

The thing is,  the only kind of leverage the Dems can really hope to get over Trump is through things like this that are going to have a lot of collateral damage. There isn't going to arise some neat,  clean and politically safe way to oppose Trump.  It's going to be a dirty fight,  if it results in anything at all. 

I would just love to hear from anyone who thinks this isn't the issue to try to make that fight out of,  what is? What genuine opportunities do you see coming down the pike for the Dems to finally start acting like an actual opposition party? Or have you just resigned yourself to the idea that they sit by like spectators for the next 2 years while  DOGE continues to gang rape the administrative state? It seems like the highest aspiration they have is to be the perfect victims.

Yup, that's fair - I certainly agree that Trump wanted the bill to pass more than he wanted the alternative. But, I don't think that's the only part of the calculus. To Schumer's concern, and it was a concern voiced by others - my understanding is that in the event of a shutdown, it would in some sense empower the Trump admin, or more specifically the OMB (Office of Management and Budget), which is run by a conservative hardliner, to decide which federal gov't workers are essential and which are not essential - in this case, I'm guessing more likely than not that DOGE and its staff would get tagged as 'essential', but there would be wide discretion about who would get furloughed, and in the case of a protracted shutdown, the Trump admin would get wider latitude about which parts of government to reopen, and which parts to set DOGE upon in the meantime. I could be wrong about this and am open to being corrected, but it's just my understanding based on what I've read/heard. If my understanding is correct though, one could reasonably surmise that even though the shutdown obviously presents political risks to Democrats, it also presents political risks to Republicans, and the uncertainty of it all could have been seen by both Trump and Schumer as something undesirable, even if there was a chance there would be possible benefits to reap. The status quo, or the devil you know, is always the safe option - though I understand why that makes more sense for the party in power than the opposition party.

I think it's worth pointing out that this stopgap funding bill was a continuing resolution - in other words, the funding it entailed was mostly the same as what was passed under the Biden admin, with a few marginal changes (non-defense spending trimmed by $13b from previous year, defense spending increased by $6b from last year).

EDIT: After reading some more, it appears there's differing opinions on this - some are saying there were significant changes made by Republicans to the previous spending bill passed under the Biden admin - so I'll just claim ignorance a bit on this one. I'm not about to read the fucking bill for myself though.

To your point of when the next chance is coming down the pike, since this is a 6-month stopgap bill, my understanding is that in September, they'll need to pass another funding bill. That funding bill will obviously be much closer to the midterms - and it allows plenty of time for favorability ratings to change. Per the links I posted in this thread in an earlier post, Trump is having some of the best approval ratings of his history right now, while Democrats are having some of the worst approval ratings of their history right now. So in some sense, you could see how the case could be made that it would be less politically risky for Democrats to take a hardline stance after Trump's approval ratings most likely start to dip.

I don't disagree with your assessment of the Democratic party right now by the way - spineless, weak, disoriented, disunified, etc. I honestly don't think they've done enough internal reflection of why they lost (and lost the popular vote) in 2024 quite yet. They don't have a grasp on how they lost, and what they need to do to change their perception in the eyes of voters. As a result, I get the sense that much of this outrage from Democrats and their base is motivated by the desire for opposition for opposition's sake (regardless of if the specific opposition is politically advantageous to them in the moment), rather than calculated opposition with a better alternative for voters at the ready and a plan of how to get there. I get it, when your party and its voters view Trump and his party as dictatorial fascists, it feels like opposition at any cost is always the right play, politically. But when you find out that the dictatorial fascists have a better approval rating than you do, it inevitably results in some self-confidence issues.

I was actually discussing this with Lisna recently, where he suggested maybe the best course of action, given the state of the Democrats, is to wait for Trump's fuck-ups to pile up and go from there. I was a little dubious at the time (because generally, I think a proactive plan is better than a reactive plan - but I guess for that to be true, you need to have a strong sense of how you're going to be proactive), but I don't know, maybe in some ways that is the right play. James Carville seems to think so - he calls it 'playing possum'

"People don't like the Democratic Party," he told a crowd gathered to hear him speak at the University of Virginia last week. "Even Democrats don't like it."

Hundreds were in attendance at UVa's Alumni Hall last Thursday to hear from the 80-year-old former chief strategist for Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign.

That crowd, who moments earlier delighted themselves in a documentary screening about Carville's life, fell silent as the man known as the "Ragin' Cajun" sunk in his chair, stretched out his legs and delivered a dose of reality.

Why have so many soured on the Democratic Party?

"Because a political party is supposed to win an election," he said. "And when you lose, people don't like you, OK?"

"You watch this nonsense ... walking canes and holding up auction cards in protest," referring to the Democratic lawmakers in attendance at President Donald Trump's first joint address to Congress of his second term. Many held up paddles with "FALSE" printed on them throughout the speech, some wore pink as a "color of power and protest" and Texas Rep. Al Green waved his cane at the president before he was escorted out of the House chamber.

Carville described the scene in one word: "Stupid."

For nearly an hour during a question-and-answers session after a screening of "Winning Is Everything, Stupid!" Carville gave a dire prognosis of the Democratic Party, which has took a bruising at the polls last November, losing the White House, the Senate and the popular vote.

But Carville didn't present a problem without a solution. There is something Democrats can do, he said.

Democrats, who Carville said have increasingly became a party that is educated and coastal, need to sharpen up or they could lose "the whole god damn thing," he said.

"Right now, what the Democrats need to do is play possum. Be strategic," he said. "I want the party to be measured. To give the impression that they understand the grave risk that the country is in."

When the Democrats are ready to lay out all their cards and die on a hill in opposition, so be it. But right now, I think you could give them all an entire month, and they'd all still be arguing about which 5 or 6 hills they should die on - and other Democrats still would be more in favor of dying on a mountain or in a trench instead.

[Auroras In Ice]

He swears he is a king that can do anything. Fucking idiot

Unless anyone steps up to stop him, he's not wrong.

[Trollheart]

Not that it's all I took from that quote, but what did Carville mean when he said Democrats have become "coastal"? As an Irishman, I don't get it. Is this some politico-speak for being out of touch, the equivalent of the footballing term "already on the beach"?

[SGR]

Not that it's all I took from that quote, but what did Carville mean when he said Democrats have become "coastal"? As an Irishman, I don't get it. Is this some politico-speak for being out of touch, the equivalent of the footballing term "already on the beach"?

Sort of - he's referring to northeast coast, west coast, urban liberal elites.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/coastal-elite

[Trollheart]

Ah right, I see. No longer in touch with the common man, woman or small blue exploding thing that goes WHOOP! on alternate Tuesdays. Gotcha. Thanks.

[Jwb]

I'm going to avoid directly quoting you @SGR this time to cut down somewhat on the extended blocks of text,  but here's my response,  which is not coincidentally also an extended block of text:

Re: OMB giving them latitude to determine which parts of the government to fund.  I did read that,  and it's part of Schumer's broader narrative that in fact Musk and co want a shutdown. Because this arrangement enables DOGE even more. 

From what I can tell (and i don't really pretend to know much of anything about the OMB, and all of Schumer's arguments I've read or heard don't delve much into specifics beyond the basic gist that you outlined), but it seems like this argument is assuming that the government in fact stays shut down for a protracted period of time and they just run with that dynamic to pursue their agenda with DOGE.

My thing is, I think that if anything they probably had a back up plan for how to continue their agenda if a shutdown happened,  but I don't think they actually want the ramifications of a shutdown. So I think it's fairly plausible that the chaos from the market would have motivated them to the negotiating table, rather than just double down on accepting a shutdown.  I wouldn't necessarily bet on it,  because who can really predict what line this schizophrenic regime is going to take at any given time?  But at the very least it's likely to cause serious problems for them, if they don't relent.

Let's say that hypothetically they just run with leaving the government shut down and continuing their efforts to gut the administrative state with DOGE. I think the sound of that is actually more appropriate than giving what they are currently doing the stamp of a bipartisan legitimacy, while they continue to gut the administrative state more or less unimpeded as it is. That's actually the worst of both worlds. 

This lays bare how foolish Carville's strategy is.  They are doing way more damage in 3 months than the Democrats will ever repair in 8 full years of back to back rule.  So it seems to me like he came up with a suitable rationalization for doing nothing,  which he had already planned on doing anyway.  Which is well enough.  He's out of touch anyway.

As for opposition for the sake of opposition, I mean even giving the appearance of opposition is much more useful than doing nothing.  Much more useful still than giving your rubber stamp to their agenda with no resistance. Especially when you are trying to warn people about a regime that represents a threat to democracy.  Like you suggested, their actions undermine their rhetoric about the threat this regime represents.  And I don't think it's their rhetoric that is wrong,  in this case.

As for September, the idea of them relying on Trump's polls to drop before they grow some nerve is also not particularly convincing as their poll numbers are way worse than his precisely because of how weak they are, imo. I'm sure this incident really helped them on their way to winning that popularity they so desperately need in order to be confident enough to stand up to Trump.  Here's a crazy thought: maybe even the appearance of opposition would give people who are frustrated with Trump and Musk an alternative to latch onto. You aren't going to get more popular with this kind performance, that's for sure.  I guess Schumer is just banking on people eventually forgetting how pathetic they are,  given enough time,  distance, and Trump?Just sounds like the path of least resistence, to me.

I do appreciate you laying out the other side, BTW, and I think the OMB argument in particular doesn't seem to me to be completely without merit. I just think it's far too risk averse given the fact that a lot of what is being described as the risk is something that is already happening anyway,  that maybe they suppose could happen faster or more efficiently under a shutdown.  But obviously I could be misjudging how drastic that difference would actually be.

I don't think the other baggage it would bring to them would be worth it; they're currently getting basically whatever they want anyway. With the turmoil on the stock markets already being caused by Trump's schizo trade wars,  a shutdown seems like too much of a liability to me. 

But if they decided to go down that rabbit hole,  I do have a hard time assuming that's gonna hit the Dems harder than it hits the admin. So instead of just believing them when they warn you that you're gonna get all the blame,  take a second to consider that's a self fulfilling prophecy they're attempting to speak into existence.  If you tried that for once,  maybe you would be the ones to set the narrative.

For as long as the Dems are just constantly scrambling in terror, they will simply exist as a living reminder that resistance is futile.  I don't think that's a strategy.  It's second nature to them,  and so are all of the post hoc rationalizations for why it's always either inevitable or at the very least the lesser of two evils.  That's literally all they know how to do.*

* To be fair,  this time around most of them actually did seem on board with opposing the bill.  Which actually makes it seem even worse.  I hope Schumer hangs it up and moves to Boca Raton, where he belongs.

[Lexi Darling]

'Segregated facilities' are no longer explicitly banned in federal contracts

My goodness look at the time, it's fuck these racist shitsuckers o'clock.

[SGR]

Yeah @Jwb, I don't think either of us are going to win awards for brevity. 

Part of your broader argument seems to be that because the Democrats are weak, they should have taken this opportunity to fight and at least give the appearance of opposition, as it might be politically beneficial to them and at least give their base some optimism. My view of it is a little bit different, from the standpoint that because they are so weak and directionless (and control neither chamber), coming off an election loss they haven't spent the time truly learning from, they're actually not prepared for this fight, and there's more they stand to lose than truly gain by taking up the fight, at least at this moment in time.

You did point out that the OMB furloughs/DOGE casualities in a shutdown probably rests on the assumption that the shutdown would be protracted - I think that's true. I don't really see a way the Dems could get any meaningful concessions from Republicans unless the shutdown was protracted enough to make them seriously feel political pressure. Negotiating amidst a shutdown is a game of political brinkmanship in essence (which is a large part of the reason I don't think the Democrats are prepared or suited for successfully playing that game at this moment in time). You mentioned that you think market chaos would bring Republicans to the negotiating table to make some concessions in the event of a shutdown, but based on history, markets usually see through the noise of a government shutdown, and I wouldn't call the effects 'market chaos'. So I'd doubt market effects would apply much, if any real pressure to Republicans.

"What does a government shutdown mean for markets?"

What does a government shutdown mean for markets? The shutdown itself is likely to have a very limited impact on markets and the economy just like other idiosyncratic, short-lived events. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) studied the economic effect of the 2018-2019 government shutdown (which, at five weeks long, was the longest shutdown on record). According to the CBO, each week the shutdown lasted shaved 10 to 15 basis points from the GDP.

Importantly, once the shutdown ended, economic output almost fully rebounded as workers and operations came back online. Markets understand that these shutdowns are temporary and as such tend to look through them.

We analyzed the previous government shutdowns since 2010 (there have been three) and their effect on markets. All things considered, markets didn't move much. On average, the S&P actually gained 4.7% while the government was in limbo – including a 10.3% return during the 35-day 2019 shutdown. Across other asset classes, bond yields were marginally lower on average, and the dollar tended to decline.

What's more, when we extend our timeline back to 1977, we can increase our sample size to 20 government shutdowns. The result for markets is similar. Stocks and core bonds showed no movement on average, treasury yields tended to move marginally higher and the dollar declined less than half a percent.

[close]

The thing that is clear is that most of the Democrat base seemed to want them to force the shutdown. That desire for opposition and at least some sign of life and will is understandable, but one thing that's not clear to me is what concession (or concessions) did the Democrats want exactly? The feeling I got (and I could be misguided or uninformed on this) is that in the event of a shutdown, the Democrats would need to huddle up and negotiate amongst themselves about which concessions they even want before trying to negotiate with Republicans - if this is true, again, this would seem like a leadership problem to me. If we look to the last government shutdown, which was in late 2018 - early 2019, the sticking point and the concession were the same thing, and it was clear - Trump wanted about $5b in funding for the border wall, and the Democrats were not having it. It resulted in the longest federal government shutdown in our history at 35 days. Trump eventually caved, but a couple things were different from today - Pelosi was the house majority speaker at the time (after the Dems recently won back the majority in the 2018 midterms), and she, as usual, brought her cutthroat and iron-fisted leadership to the table to oppose Trump. If Nancy was in a leadership role today, I'd have much more faith that the Democrats could get something meaningful from Republicans over a shutdown - but without her, Chucky is basically Robin without his Batman. And Temu Obama (Hakeem Jeffries) is no replacement at all for Batman. 

Regardless of what exact concession(s) the Democrats would have wanted, it seemed pretty clear at least from the messaging that DOGE was a big sticking point. If we agree that the shutdown would likely need to be protracted for the Democrats to get a meaningful concession, it seems wise to look at what the effects were from the aforementioned government shutdown - which of course had no DOGE and no Elon - spoiler below for a good summary I found on Wikipedia:

Spoiler

The 35-day shutdown, the longest in US history after surpassing the 21-day shutdown of 1995–1996, led to 380,000 federal workers being furloughed, and an additional 420,000 workers were required to work without any known payment dates, forcing many to find other paid work or protest against the extended period of the deadlock. Sharp reductions had to be made on payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Internal Revenue Service faced delays in processing around $140 billion worth of tax refunds, the FBI faced major disruptions to some of its investigations, staff shortages in the Transportation Security Administration caused airports to be closed down, and economic growth was reduced by billions of dollars.

The deadlock ended on January 25, 2019, when both chambers of Congress approved a plan to reopen the US government for 3 weeks, in order to facilitate negotiations for a suitable appropriation bill; Trump endorsed the plan amidst rising security and safety concerns. A source inside the White House told CNN that a "contributing catalyst" to the end of the shutdown was a significant number of absences of air traffic controllers, which caused significant flight delays and cancellations.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the shutdown cost the government $3 billion in back pay for furloughed workers, plus $2 billion in lost tax revenues due to reduced tax evasion compliance activities by the Internal Revenue Service, and a smaller amount of lost fees such as for visits to national parks, for a total of about $5 billion.

[close]

I do find it rather ironic/funny that the ~$5b that Trump wanted for the border wall was lost in the process of this government shutdown that was caused by opposition to the appropriation of that money.  But ultimately, the Democrats did get what they wanted. But imagine if, by incurring that shutdown over the border wall, it empowered Trump to keep building the wall during the process. That is essentially what it would be in this recent case of a shutdown if the sticking point was DOGE, as hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be either furloughed or forced to work without pay. If the problem with DOGE is that they are laying off workers and kneecapping important government programs, this shutdown also would have done that. And by doing that, the federal workers at the crux of all this negotiation would likely be the ones pressuring Democrats to cave to Trump - the same people the Democrats would be claiming to try and help. Unless the Democrats could negotiate DOGE out of existence (which I don't think there's any chance of), then Democrats would likely be negotiating about what DOGE can or can't do - perhaps a focus on a sacred cow they want to protect from DOGE - but if they took that route, they'd essentially be legitimizing DOGE that way too, a department that in their messaging they have proclaimed is unconstitutional.

You've mentioned a couple times the high degree of damage you believe DOGE is doing/how difficult or nearly impossible it would be for Democrats to recover/rebuild from the damage - but regarding how much damage DOGE is actually doing, I don't think that's entirely clear yet. Much of the cuts that DOGE has made (or attempted to make) are still finding opposition, pushback, and reversals in court, e.g.:

Judge says dismantling of USAID was unconstitutional, orders Musk to restore access for employees

It's certainly possible that by the time the midterms roll around, much of what DOGE has tried to do/cut doesn't end up working - they could be remembered by then primarly for all kinds of chaos and disruption, with very little to show for it in terms of savings or increased 'government efficiency'. One thing I know about old people (the most reliable voter bloc, especially for midterms) is that the last thing they want is 'chaos'. Carville's strategy of 'playing possum' or 'doing nothing' obviously carries its own risks, but there is a chance it looks much less foolish in the future.

Or maybe not - I'm kinda spitballing here. We're playing with a lot of hypotheticals and speculation about the future. Maybe you're right that the Democrats would've been better off forcing the shutdown and gambling it would be worse for Trump/Republicans than it would be for them. I just don't think it's quite as obvious and clear-cut as many seem to be making it out to be. Likewise, I appreciate you laying out the case for the alternative path that the Democrats could've taken but did not. In six months, when the next funding bill comes around, and the Democrats pop their heads back out of the hole, we'll see whether or not they see their own shadow again. But when it's time for the midterm elections, I'd be hard-pressed to believe that anyone is really going to remember, be influenced by, or even care about this 'shutdown that never was'.