Democrats who are still in the minority in both the House and Senate are attempting to impose their will on both the majority of Republicans and the American voting public in order to satisfy the demands of the party’s elitist progressive activists who imposed their woke DEI policy on every aspect of government and public life during the Biden administration.

Democrat leaders on the local, state, and national levels are now actively seeking to undermine the Trump administration’s efforts to restore the traditional American family values and moral standards still supported by the vast majority of American voters. The Democrats are also seeking to block Trump administration efforts to overcome local and state immigration sanctuary policies by vigorously enforcing the federal immigration laws, which the Biden administration ignored, by removing the thousands of criminal aliens who were allowed to enter this country illegally, thanks to Biden’s open border policies. Since then, these dangerous and violent criminals have been preying on members of the public with impunity in the “blue” cities and states where liberal Democrat elected officials refuse to enforce basic criminal laws.

A prime example of the Democrats’ obstructionist political tactics is the fact that the country is now facing the prospect of a third partial federal government shutdown since October 1, due to the Democrats’ stubborn refusal to vote to pass legislation funding basic government operations unless Republicans agree to include their highly partisan demands.

Dishonest Excuses for Shutting Down the Government

One of the problems with this Democrat propensity to shut down the federal government is that the reasons they have been giving for these shutdowns are dishonest. Those issues included the expiration of overly generous Covid-era Obamacare insurance policy subsidies on January 1, which Democrats warned would create widespread havoc when they initiated the longest partial shutdown of the federal government which started last October 1 and continued until February 12, when the chaos it created at the nation’s airports and the termination of critical social safety net programs relied upon by tens of millions of Americans, such as food stamps (SNAP) forced the Democrats to accept a continuing resolution which did not include the extension of the subsidies that the Democrats had been demanding.

It soon became obvious that the true cause of last October’s extended shutdown and the real hardships it created for millions of federal employees and the American people was a bitter dispute within the Democrat party between its angry liberal progressive activists and its more traditional congressional leadership.

More specifically, the progressives were still furious at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for failing to shut down the government when interim funding expired last March. By having Senate Democrats vote for the approval of another tranche of interim government funding, Schumer permitted President Trump to continue to implement his policy agenda, including the closure of America’s borders to illegal immigration, ending the Biden administration’s war upon the American fossil fuel industry, and the progressive effort to impose liberal DEI standards and priorities on virtually every aspect of American public life.

The proof that the alleged Democrat concern over the January 1 expiration of the Obamacare premium subsidies was merely a red herring was the fact that the issue promptly disappeared from the public political dialogue, and the Obamacare health insurance market continued to operate as usual without the expired subsidies that the Democrats had claimed were so critical.

The interim government funding that Congress approved last March expired on January 31, which gave Democrats another opportunity to shut down the federal government as an expression of their burning resentment towards President Trump and everything he represents. In order to justify another partial government shutdown, they seized upon one of the distinguishing features of his presidency, the intrusive and occasionally heavy-handed implementation by ICE and Border Patrol agents of their mandate to detain and deport illegal aliens in the ultra-liberal sanctuary city of Minneapolis despite a well-organized public resistance movement led by the mayor of the city Jacob Frey, and the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. They sought to publicly demonize the federal immigration agents by describing them as dangerous, latter-day “Nazis,” merely for carrying out their duty to enforce federal immigration laws.

Using ICE to Divert Attention Away From Large-Scale Somali Fraud

Walz is also suspected of having another strong motivation for accusing ICE agents of violating the civil rights of the illegal aliens living in Minneapolis. It has been effective in diverting public attention away from the evidence that Walz ignored the warnings of large-scale organized fraud by Somali immigrants living in Minnesota. According to federal government investigators, the Somalis collected as much as $9 billion of state and federal government money on Walz’s watch as governor, by claiming to run entirely bogus government-funded welfare agencies and child care centers, and then sending much of the embezzled government money to friends and relatives still living in Somalia.

Frey, Walz and their fellow Democrats in the House and Senate were quick to seize upon the controversial shooting death of Minneapolis resident Renee Good on January 7 by an ICE agent, to justify another effort to force a partial shutdown the federal government by refusing to vote for an already approved federal spending bill which included normal funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE operations.

Good had been using her car to block the road that morning in an attempt to obstruct an ICE deportation operation in the area. The ICE agent apparently opened fire at Good because he thought she was using her car to try run him over, after she had ignored orders from other ICE agents at the scene to stop the car and get out. The controversy over Good’s death was further intensified because the video clips of the shooting taken by the ICE officer and civilian bystanders in the vicinity were subject to different interpretations as to whether or not Good’s car posed a credible threat to the safety of the ICE officer, prompting him to open fire in self-defense.

A Democrat Shutdown Will Not Reduce ICE Funding

However, the Democrat move to cut off federal funding to DHS had no direct impact on ICE because $75 billion in federal funding for ICE operations had already been passed by the House and Senate and signed into law last July 4 as part of the Trump-sponsored “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Therefore, the Democrats’ refusal to approve funding for DHS could not prevent ICE from operating.

Once again, Democrats were cynically using the controversy over the shooting of a civilian by an ICE agent as a convenient excuse to demonstrate their opposition to Trump’s policies by deliberately shutting down vital federal government operations and services, regardless of the inconvenience and hardships that the shutdown would cause to the affected federal employees and American citizens who rely on those government programs and services.

Sanctuary Cities Are Creating the Problems for ICE

The anti-ICE Democrats and the liberal media outlets supporting their protests are deliberately ignoring the fact that ICE and Border Patrol officers have been forced to use more aggressive tactics to carry out their mission to detain and deport tens of thousands of mostly criminal illegal aliens from this country because of the “sanctuary city” policies imposed by liberal elected Democrat officials in “blue” cities and states.

Once again, the controversy over ICE operations in sanctuary cities and states has been generated by the Democrats as a diversion intended to obscure their true motivation, an obsessive and frustrated hatred of President Trump, often described as “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Good’s death is being used as a justification for the hatred of Trump and everything he stands for. That includes Trump’s efforts to reverse the Biden administration’s open border policies, as well as the spectrum of “woke” progressive policies that elite liberal Democrat activists have been trying to impose upon every corner of American society, whether the voters agree with them or not.

Democrats Ignoring the Collateral Damage From a Shutdown

Following a brief partial federal government shutdown that started on February 1, Democrats agreed to separate DHS funding from a measure that provided non-controversial funding for the services and programs provided by five other departments of the federal government. But there is a list of 10 major changes in ICE policies being demanded by the minority leader of House Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries, and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. Because some House and Senate Republicans have refused to accept several of these demands, this weekend could see the shutdown of the essential operation of several agencies within DHS other than ICE, including the emergency services provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Coast Guard patrols of American waters, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security screenings at the nation’s airports.

When the separate temporary funding for DHS operations alone, which was approved last week, expires this weekend, the political spotlight will turn once again to the Senate, where it will require the votes of eight senators who caucus with Democrats, such as Maine’s independent senator, Angus King, to pass funding for DHS for the rest of the current 2026 fiscal year on September 30.

King told NBC News on Monday, “What ICE is doing is unconscionable, and it’s got to be reined in. I can’t, in good conscience, vote for it. I would feel complicit in what they are doing.”

King’s position is significant because he was one of eight senators in the Democratic caucus who voted with Republicans to reopen the government, ending the extended shutdown last fall. He has also been instrumental in getting other recent government funding bills over the 60-vote Senate majority requirement to defeat the threat of a filibuster.

King also sought to differentiate between the threat to cut off operations at DHS agencies alone this weekend and the situation last fall, when the failure of the Senate to pass a continuing resolution (CR) forced the shutdown of much of the federal government.

“So if DHS isn’t funded, you’re talking about [just] ICE and TSA and the Coast Guard and FEMA” being shut down, King said, “Which I regret. But it’s not the same as it was in the fall, where you were talking about food stamps, support for research and development, medical care, all of those things. So it’s a very different situation in terms of balancing what’s at stake.”

Schumer and Jeffries Are Trying to Dictate ICE Changes to Trump

Senate Minority Leader Schumer said Monday that while the “legislative text” of the ten Democrat demands for changes in ICE policy was provided to the White House and Republican leaders, he still has “no idea” whether they will be accepted. He also defended the changes as “reasonable” because “we’re asking ICE to do nothing more than follow the standards that the vast majority of law enforcement agencies already follow,” a contention that has not yet been accepted by Republicans and Trump administration officials.

House Minority Leader Jeffries described the choice facing Republicans this way in a CNN interview. “Either they’re going to agree to dramatically reform the way in which ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies are conducting themselves so that they’re behaving like every other law enforcement agency in the country, or they’re making the explicit decision to shut down the Coast Guard, shut down FEMA, and shut down TSA, and that would be very unfortunate.”

When a Trump White House official was asked about the ten Democrat demands by an NBC reporter, he replied, “Nothing has been ruled out. There are some items worth discussing and others that are more challenging.” But the administration official also said that Democrats have been negotiating in “good faith” so far, holding out some hope of reaching a timely agreement on continued funding for all of the agencies of DHS.

Senate Republican Majority Leader Jon Thune also seemed optimistic that a deal could still be reached with Democrats before DHS is shut down, but seemed to be far from certain about it.

“Over the weekend, the Trump administration and congressional Democrats engaged in meaningful talks on a path forward, and Democrats have made their demands known in detail. Some of them are positive starting points for further discussion. Others are nonstarters and unnecessarily tie the hands of law enforcement,” Thune then concluded that, “In the coming days, the administration and Democrats will need to work out their differences.”

But Louisiana Senate Republican John Kennedy was less optimistic than Thune about the timing of an eventual agreement. He told NBC News, “Most Republicans that I’ve talked to think that Chuck [Schumer’s] proposals are not very meritorious, and we wouldn’t vote for them. . . I think it might take a few weeks, but we’ll end up with a clean CR that just maintains the status quo, because the [Democrats] don’t want to get blamed for hurting FEMA or TSA or the Coast Guard.”

Fetterman Distances Himself Again From Fellow Democrats

In a Fox News interview over the weekend, Pennsylvania’s maverick but refreshingly candid Democrat Senator John Fetterman was also doubtful that a deal could be reached in time to avoid a shutdown of the other DHS agencies.

“I absolutely would expect that it’s going to shut down,” Fetterman told veteran Fox News show host Maria Bartiromo. “We, the Democrats, we provided ten kinds of basic things, and then the Republicans pushed back quickly, saying that’s a . . . [Democrat] wish list, and that they’re nonstarters.”

Fetterman then added, “I truly don’t know what specifically the Democrats’ red lines are that it has to be, [but] certainly [we are] not going to get all 10.”

As for himself, Fetterman has repeatedly distanced himself from his Democrat colleagues by declaring that he believes it is irresponsible for elected officials to deny services to the voters by deliberately shutting down the government.

Virginia’s Governor Spanberger Revealed as a Secret Liberal

Meanwhile, Republicans are crying foul at the latest move by Virginia’s newly installed Democrat governor, Abigail Spanberger, for supporting a partisan Democrat effort to redraw the state’s map of congressional districts so that the current 6-5 balance of power in the state’s congressional delegation would become a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in November’s midterm election.

Spanberger is being accused of political hypocrisy because just a few years ago, while she was a promoting herself as a moderate Democrat congresswoman representing a competitive Virginia district, she condemned all efforts to redraw congressional districts in a state to favor one party or the other, a process known as “gerrymandering,” because it disenfranchises the citizens of the minority party in the state. The newly redrawn congressional district map of Virginia transforms most of the existing Republican-majority voting districts in southern Virginia by connecting them to areas in northern Virginia that have large majorities of Democrat voters.

Virginia Republicans have also condemned the Democrat redistricting effort as a “reckless” partisan power grab and challenged the process in a state court, where a judge has agreed with them and issued a ruling to block it. Virginia Democrats immediately appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court of Virginia and claim that they are confident that the lower court ruling will be overturned, permitting the new map to be used in the midterm election.

Both Parties Using Gerrymandering to Win Control of the House

Democrats have responded to criticism that their map would deprive Republican voters in Virginia of fair representation in Congress by blaming President Trump for having urged Republican states, starting with Texas, last year to draw more Republican-leaning congressional districts to protect the GOP’s extremely narrow current majority in the House of Representatives in this fall’s midterm elections. So far, Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri have heeded Trump’s call, but Democrats in blue states have responded in kind, beginning with California, which responded with a new congressional district map likely to result in 4 House seats switching from Republican to Democrat.

Republicans have accused Spanberger of tricking moderate voters by using a method known as “bait and switch” to disguise her hidden liberal agenda. They point to five other highly partisan issues on which Spanberger abandoned her congressional voting record and her campaign promises to govern Virginia like a Bill Clinton-style moderate Democrat by adopting highly liberal positions shortly after being sworn in as Virginia’s governor.

One of her first official acts was to rescind former Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s executive order requiring all Virginia law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE and other federal immigration officials.

Undermining Law and Order in Virginia While Raising Taxes

Spanberger also endorsed amendments introduced by Virginia’s majority of Democrat legislators to end mandatory minimum sentences for various crimes in the state’s criminal courts, including manslaughter, assaulting a law enforcement officer, possession, and other repeat violent felonies, as well as eliminating the mandatory minimum five-day sentence for first-time offenders of the state law against drunk driving (DUI).

Despite running on a campaign based upon a promise to voters to improve affordability, Spanberger supports the various proposals introduced by Democrat state legislators last years to apply the existing retail sales tax to previously exempt services including dry cleaning, landscaping, animal care, cosmetic services and gym memberships, as well as a new tax in Northern Virginia on the delivery of packages by Amazon and UPS.

Spanberger is also supporting a controversial measure introduced by state Democrat legislators, which would impose liberal DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) standards giving preference to all minority and women-owned businesses in the granting of state government contracts for under $100,000, which some Republicans claim amounts to unfair racial discrimination against businesses owned by white men.

Finally, Spanberger supports a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia that was recently passed by the state’s Democrat-controlled Senate, which would effectively reverse the pro-life 2022 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the still controversial 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Governor Spanberger also announced that she will have Virginia rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, in which the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont jointly tax the power plants that use fossil fuels based on the amount of carbon dioxide that they emit. Spanberger’s Republican critics claim that those taxes will ultimately be passed on to Virginia consumers in the form of higher electricity bills.

Moderate Democrats Are Now an Endangered Species

Unfortunately, Spanberger is not alone among formerly moderate Democrat elected officials who have moved sharply to the left in order to attract the support of the growing number of Democrats’ leftist party activists who are notoriously intolerant of the party’s remaining moderates. They have become an endangered political species due to the outspoken anti-Israel progressives like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the members of AOC’s squad. They have already changed the internal balance of power within the Democrat party and increased its tolerance for antisemitism.