Democrats are feeling emboldened in their efforts to force a government shutdown, if need be, calculating that Republicans would take the heat now as they did in 2013, the Washington Examiner reports.
Forget the fact that a shutdown would be injurious to the country, Democrats think President Donald Trump handed them the upper hand politically last week when he trashed a bipartisan proposal to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients with his infamous "s***hole" comments.
"The shutdown of 2013 essentially happened because Republicans could not keep Ted Cruz in line," Democratic strategist Ed Espinoza told the Examiner. "If there's a shutdown in 2018, it will be because Republicans cannot keep Donald Trump in line."
History is not on the side of Democrats, though they don't boast a majority in either house like the Republicans did in their epic failures to leverage a shutdown in 1995 and 2013, the Examiner reports.
Democrats can do their damage in the Senate, where Republicans own just a one-seat majority, yet need 60 votes to pass the spending bill. Republicans need at least nine Democrat votes for passage.
"I can see (Republicans) getting blamed as well," a Republican insider told the Examiner. "Voters don't understand the nuances of the whole 60-vote thing and it doesn't translate well into a short sound bite: 'If they are in charge of everything, they are responsible for it, right?'"
However, not all Democrats are spoiling for a shutdown in the name of politics.
"Shame on any of us if we sit here and say, 'OK, we're going to let it run out for the sake of politics and shut the government down,'" Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, said Sunday.