Trump and the GOP Won the Shutdown. Let’s Make Sure Trophies Are Taken.

It is time for Republicans to press their advantage and legislate aggressively.

Trump signs resolution ending longest-ever government shutdown.

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by Scott McKay
November 14, 2025

Sunday night, the inevitable finally happened and the Senate Democrats finally cracked. After more than 40 days of pointless filibustering, which furthered a government shutdown from which most Americans saw no measureable effects and weren’t particularly transfixed by, seven of them — plus a Democrat-leaning independent — joined the Republicans (except for the increasingly tiresome Rand Paul) in producing 60 votes for an amended continuing resolution on the federal budget which does a few noteworthy things.

The CR covers federal spending through the end of January, which avoids the destructive customary end-of-the-year omnibus crush through which Congress has blown so much wasteful spending, and it also gives some time for the nine unpassed federal budget bills to make their way through the legislative process.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has made it his mission to return the budget process to “regular order,” which is defined as both houses passing the 12 legally mandated appropriations bills on time each year, thereby avoiding the need for continuing resolutions to keep the government’s operations uninterrupted. Before the just-ended shutdown fight and the Democrats’ filibuster of the short-term CR, it looked like there was a real chance of getting back to regular order for the first time this century.

Maybe it’ll happen before the new CR expires. Three of the 12 bills have now passed both houses. Later this week, the House will pass the amended versions of the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bill, the Agriculture bill, and the Legislative Branch bill.

Additionally, the CR will fund the SNAP program through the end of the just-commenced current fiscal year, meaning future Democrat filibusters for the next 11 months won’t threaten anyone with starvation. Federal workers will get full back pay. And the reductions-in-force that Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought executed last month are reversed, which does not mean the people in those jobs are necessarily rehired; Vought might opt to hire different people in those positions or to confirm the RIFs.

This is awfully, awfully thin gruel for the Democrats. They have unquestionably lost the shutdown fight.

We know now that most of the filibustering the Democrats engaged in over the past six weeks was pure politics. It was all about ginning up their base for last week’s elections, and particularly in Virginia, where they were trying to pass a slate of truly noxious candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. That worked, as all the furloughed federal employees in Northern Virginia had nothing better to do than turn into an army of get-out-the-vote activists, and with GOP voters less than enthused about their own slate, the Dems had a big cycle and were able to shape a narrative of a party on the comeback trail.

And it’s certainly the narrative they want. The problem is that it doesn’t contain a lot of substance. And it’s already fallen apart after Sunday night’s collapse.

Let’s not kid ourselves — the GOP coalition is definitely a winning one, but only when it actually shows up. And old-school, blue-blood Bush Republicans who aren’t comfortable pushing America First policies and messaging like they actually care about winning do not turn out today’s Republican voters. That confers an advantage for Democrats, which can save them in off-year and off-cycle elections.

But it doesn’t change the fact that the public hates the current Democrat Party.

And what we’re seeing now that the filibuster has fallen apart and the Schumer Shutdown stormtroopers have gotten routed is that the Democrats actually hate each other.

For example…