(Dobbs) The Republicans Have A Strategy. The Word For It Is Fear.

Government health insurance for illegal immigrants? That's hogwash.

Each side can find a way to blame the other side for the government shutdown. But here’s the bottom line: Republicans control the House of Representatives. Republicans control the Senate. Republicans control the White House. And if somehow the issues behind the shutdown reach the Supreme Court, Republicans control that too.

Maybe the devil’s in the details, but when it comes to the blame game— and it already has— the basics aren’t hard to understand: in the run-up to this shutdown, the Republicans could have prevented it. They could have negotiated with the Democrats instead of shutting them out. They didn’t.

That is the Democrats’ most effective argument: Republicans control every facet of the United States government, but in their ideological fervor and fawning loyalty to the president, they let this happen. It’s not the Democrats’ best argument, but for the blame game, it is the most effective. Because when it comes to the public’s opinion about each party— and truth be known, both sides play this game— it’s not about who’s to blame. It’s about who gets the blame.

The Democrats’ best argument is this: the worst thing you can say about them is that they didn’t lamely lay down their arms and go along with the Republicans’ funding bill because they are fighting to keep health insurance affordable. The worst thing you can say about the Republicans is, they aren’t.

Sure, the Democrats could have folded up their tent and let the Republicans win this battle, but that would have pushed the cost of insurance beyond the reach of millions of Americans. If the Republicans had folded up theirs, those millions of citizens would still have the peace of mind of coverage.

But the Republicans have a strategy. The word for it is fear.

The first example: Trump has been fear-mongering the prospect of mass firings of government workers if the shutdown was triggered, as it now has been. Not mass “layoffs” which is always the case when the government shuts down, but mass “firings.”

This memo a week ago from the Office of Management and Budget warned that if there is a shutdown, “Agencies are directed to use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force notices for all employees in programs, projects, or activities that satisfy all three of the following conditions: (1) discretionary funding lapse, (2) another source of funding is not currently available; and (3) (they) are not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

We learned what “reduction in force” means when Elon Musk’s DOGE was cutting through government with a buzzsaw: the jobs are eliminated. This is the kind of leverage this cold-blooded administration is willing to use.

Then Sunday on NBC, Trump just came out with it: if there’s a shutdown, “We are going to cut a lot of the people that... we’re able to cut on a permanent basis.”

The second example of fear: Trump and his vice president have been putting it out there that the money the Democrats are fighting for, the money they want to spend to keep health insurance affordable, is for illegal immigrants. Vance said on X, “Democrats are about to shut down the government because they demand we fund healthcare for illegal aliens.” Trump, in his deliberately dark style, said on his website, “The Democrats want Illegal Aliens, many of them VIOLENT CRIMINALS, to receive FREE Healthcare.”

That’s hogwash. Even these guys must know, no one here without papers gets healthcare from the government. But that hard fact doesn’t suit their purposes. So they lie. Monday night a deepfake video was posted on Trump’s own social media that had a character depicting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying, “We need new voters. And if we give all these illegal aliens free healthcare, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us. They can’t even speak English, so they won’t realize we’re just a bunch of woke pieces of sh*t, you know?”

Can you believe how sleazy this president is?!

(This is a digression, but when it comes to sleazy, it’s hard to top Trump’s comment yesterday to the top military brass brought together in Virginia when he referred to nuclear weapons and said, “I call it the n-word. There are two n-words, and you can’t use either of them.”)

And can you believe how serious the Republicans were about avoiding a shutdown? The answer is, they weren’t. Although the House would have been needed to reconcile changes the Senate might have made to its funding bill, Speaker Mike Johnson already had adjourned the House and sent them home. Let that sink in: on the precipice of the shutdown, Speaker Johnson sent his people home.

Monday in The Washington Post, Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote a guest column and said, “Important government programs will be suspended, government services will be shuttered, and government employees, including military personnel, will temporarily be without a paycheck. Everything from certain veterans’ health care programs to food assistance for needy families could be affected.”

All true. But what he didn’t mention is, his party could easily have kept it all from happening.

So remember, Republicans control the House of Representatives, Republicans control the Senate, Republicans control the White House. If the Democrats make that argument, it won’t tell the full story of how power works in Washington, but even if it’s only half the story, that’s a far sight better than the concoction of flat-out lies from the other side.

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 39-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

You can learn more at GregDobbs.net