For the record, this will be the first real shutdown showdown during unified government. Let's keep in mind, though, that the Republican majority in the Senate is a 51 seat majority, so if the Democrats filibuster and the Republicans don't use reconciliation rules (which they have prioritized for other policies), it is specious to claim that the Republicans have a lock on power.
This puts Republicans in an odd position. It can look like they should be able to get whatever they want, but operationally, they can't. The question is how much Senate Democrats can extract on the basis of the fact that blame will default to the party with nominal majorities in both chambers of Congress and the White House, even though that nominal majority in the Senate isn't a working majority because it isn't filibuster-proof.
We... don't know. There is no historical record of this. I'm a political scientist, and science is about finding patterns in past data, whether observational or experimental, and fuck you, observational data are data. Astrophysicists are scientists, even though their data about stars, galaxies, black holes and shit are observational rather than experimental. Just because they aren't experimentally creating black holes doesn't mean they aren't scientists. So, fuck you, historical observational data are the basis of science too.
OK, sorry. Throat-clearing.
Anyway, we don't know what happens when a party with the White House, the House, and a nominal majority in the Senate winds up with a shutdown because it hasn't happened before. The easiest thing to do is to blame that party. Then again, as I wrote yesterday, if the minority party in the Senate is making non-germane policy demands for continued operation of the government, we do have historical observational data, and that party tends to lose. On that basis, the Democrats should lose. Then again, the party led by the bigger douchebag tends to lose. On that basis... do I have to type it?
At this point, I'll remind everyone of a couple of my favorite electoral anecdotes, not directly related to shutdowns. Harry Reid, and Claire McCaskill.
Back in 2010, one of the most endangered Democratic incumbents in a bad year for Democrats was then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). He was supposed to be toast. Then, he had the good fortune to find himself running against Sharron Angle as the Republican nominee. Sharron Angle is... to call her "batshit crazy" is an insult to the valuable natural resource that is bat guano. Once upon a time, it had important military applications! Anyway, Angle made herself famous by saying that if Republicans lost elections, they should turn to "second amendment remedies."
"Second amendment remedies."
"Second."
"Amendment."
"Remedies."
So, Harry Reid was really unpopular, but apparently, not that unpopular. He beat Sharron Angle. Stick a microphone in the face of someone like Sharron Angle, and she will self-destruct.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) learned that lesson. When she was supposed to be her own special kind of toast, she decided to pick her own opponent. In 2012, if she had the wrong opponent (meaning, an opponent capable of not drooling for 15 seconds straight), she was going to lose. So, she looked at the field of Republicans running for the nomination to challenge her, and decided she wanted Rep. Todd Akin to be her opponent. Why? Mouth-breathers tend to drool on camera.
McCaskill ran ads against Akin in the primary telling Republican primary voters not to vote for Akin because he's too conservative! Get it? She fucked with Republican primary voters! And it worked, because they're stupid and gullible! (Hi, Donald!) They voted for Akin. Roughly 3 seconds later, somebody stuck a microphone in Akin's face, and he said that we shouldn't worry about whether or not abortion should be legal in cases of rape because in cases of "legitimate rape," women's bodies prevent the pregnancy. So, you know, any time women who are pregnant say they were raped, they're just lying sluts!
Here is a link to the current official Senate page for the occupant of that Senate seat. Note that it belongs to Claire McCaskill, not Todd "legitimate rape" Akin.
Lesson? Stick a microphone in front of the wrong person's face, and you can sometimes win an un-winnable fight.
Then again... Donald Trump is President. He has said damn-near the same thing as Sharron Angle. His phrase was "second amendment people" rather than "second amendment remedies," but... same fuckin' thing. He's as stupid as Christine O'Donnell, he has committed multiple sexual assaults, bragged about it... I could go on, but the point is he's still the President. He's an incredibly unpopular President, but he is the President. So... what happens?
Trump will say and do stupid things. Why? He's Trump. As I keep writing, the goal of a shutdown is to make the other side look like unreasonable assholes, and Trump goes out of his way to look like an unreasonable
Then again, what if Trump just refuses to back down no matter what? Normally the "losing" side recognizes that the poll numbers are running against them, and they back down. Trump is already spectacularly unpopular. Ask him about that, though, and he will deny and tell you about his HISTORIC LANDSLIDE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VICTORY THAT IS THE GREATEST IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Does he believe that he is popular now? Does he believe that the polls are all "fake news?" If the numbers run against him, will he believe them? Will he tell himself that he is really "winning" because Trump always wins? Will he refuse to back down because he can't bring himself to do that?
What happens if the side that loses the public relations battle refuses to concede?
Prior to election day, Trump was asked if he would accept the results of the election, back when it looked like Clinton had a lock. His answer was that he would accept the results, "if I win."
What happens if Democrats win the public relations battle and Trump just digs in his heels anyway?
So much insanity here. What happens now? I don't know. Like I keep saying, we are in uncharted waters, with a President who can't navigate his way around a bathtub with his rubber ducky.