Republicans seem inclined to go with the latter — just as they have for the past two years.

Two months ago, when Democrats swept the House in the midterm election, it created an acute political dilemma for GOP members: Either they distance themselves from an increasingly toxic president and risk alienating his rabid supporters, or they firmly embrace him and upset everyone else.

Exhibit A of the bind in which Republicans find themselves is the shutdown of the federal government, now unfolding into its third week and with no end in sight.

Before Christmas, Republicans were content to vote on a continuing budget resolution to fund the government and head home for the holidays.


But then the president threw a temper tantrum. Humiliated by attacks from right-wing media that accused him of giving in on his campaign promise to build a border wall, Trump drew a line in the sand. In an Oval Office appearance with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump made clear he would shut down the government if his demands on the wall were not met.

With Democrats unwilling to give the president what he wants, the focus quickly shifted to Republicans. A bill had already passed the GOP-led Senate to fund the government. If the House took it up and passed it into law, Trump would have to back down — or veto a spending bill agreed to by his own party’s leaders in Congress.

True to form, House Republicans showed no willingness to challenge the president. And so the government shutdown began.

On Thursday, with Democrats back in control of the House, they quickly passed legislation to reopen the government. But without money for Trump’s wall, Senate Republicans are refusing to even consider it.

That means we are looking at a government shutdown that could go on for months. The political incentives on both sides make a breakthrough hard to achieve.


The president believes that holding firm on his beloved border wall will energize his narrow base of supporters, which has been Trump’s core political strategy since the day he took office. For House Democrats, running against Trump’s obstinacy worked well in November, and standing up to the president’s wall will surely continue to please their supporters. They’ve shown zero inclination to give in.

But here again we come to the core political dilemma for Republicans. For GOP senators Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine, both of whom are up for reelection in 2020, a prolonged shutdown makes their political lives that much more difficult. Not surprisingly, both have called for the Senate to get the government open again. They’ve been joined by a handful of House Republicans in vulnerable districts. For other senators who could be facing tough fights in 2020 — such as North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Iowa’s Joni Ernst, or Martha McSally, recently appointed to fill John McCain’s seat in Arizona — the pressure on them to break with Trump is likely to build.

But most Republicans who survived the Democratic onslaught in November did so not despite President Trump, but because of him. For any Republican from a ruby-red state or district, defying Trump on his border wall is a recipe for a far-right primary challenge. These senators and representatives are far more likely to hold the line.


As the consequences of the shutdown begin to pile up — federal agencies and courts being shuttered, tax refunds delayed, national monuments remaining closed, and federal employees not receiving paychecks — it could eventually force Republicans and the president to reconsider their options. But that could take a while. GOP members haven’t previously shown much concern for federal workers or for ensuring a smoothly running federal government.

This is perhaps the most direct and pernicious consequence of polarized politics. With the number of persuadable voters falling, and with so many congressional districts carefully drawn to favor one political party over another, neither political party has an incentive to compromise and risk upsetting its most fervent supporters.

For Democrats, that’s not a bad choice. They have the political wind at their back.

For Republicans, who have watched their party’s political fortunes take one body blow after another since Trump took office, keeping their jobs means staying the course — even if the ship of state is slowly sliding into the sea.