If you ever needed a case study in political incompetence, the Democrats’ meltdown over the Schumer shutdown has officially become Exhibit A.
This is what it looks like when a party with no message, no leadership, and no coherent agenda tries to bluff its way through a government shutdown. There’s no way to spin this: Democrats shut down the government—not to cut spending, not to fix the border, not to resolve a national emergency—but to secure $1.5 trillion in new spending for items like illegal immigrant health care and NPR funding.
AOC gets the question on whether taxpayers should pay for healthcare for illegal aliens, dodges the question by advocating for single-payer. Bernie goes back to yelling about the billionaires pic.twitter.com/e8OxmkUyzE
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 16, 2025
That’s the hill they chose to die on.
And the worst part? Voters are starting to notice. The longer this drags on, the harder it becomes to maintain the narrative that this is somehow Republicans’ fault—especially after Democrats refused a clean seven-week continuing resolution (CR) that kept Biden-era spending levels intact. It had everything they claimed to support, but they blocked it anyway. Why? Because this shutdown isn’t about governing—it’s about beating Trump. Bernie Sanders admitted it outright on CNN.
Speaking of CNN, the Democrats’ “media push” to defend their position quickly turned into a late-night comedy sketch.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused Deloitte, a global accounting firm, of dumping chemicals into rivers—presumably confusing it with DuPont or some other actual industrial polluter. Then she warned about the threat of losing “air that is drinkable.” It was less a policy conversation and more a word salad with extra dressing.
Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, spent most of his time getting indignant and trying to deflect from the awkward question that clearly rattled the panel: Did Schumer orchestrate this shutdown to avoid a primary challenge from AOC? It led to Bernie awkwardly “mansplaining” the stakes of democracy, which is ironic considering how often Democrats weaponize gender dynamics when it suits them.
AOC and Bernie have a full-blown melt down when asked if Chuck Schumer should be worried about primary challenge from AOC.
It’s so happening. pic.twitter.com/95HcWo6Naf
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) October 16, 2025
Over on NewsNation, things weren’t much better. Rep. Ro Khanna flat-out said what everyone else is whispering: Schumer has no idea what he’s doing. Sen. John Fetterman followed up with a brutal critique of his own party, acknowledging that the health care subsidy mess was created by Democrats, not Republicans. He also warned that constantly calling the GOP Nazis is “not helpful” and admitted that campaigning for Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania was, quote, “brutal.”
You know the Democrats are in deep trouble when Fetterman is the adult in the room.
And it gets worse. The Democrats are now stuck because they can’t reopen the government until after the “No Kings” rally ends this weekend. Why? Because their own radical base is threatening to camp out in front of their offices if they cave too soon. That’s the position Schumer and company have created for themselves—hostages of their own activists, paralyzed by the very ideological fringe they helped empower.
