With the standoff over funding the Department of Homeland Security—represented in news coverage by the interminably long lines to get through airport security—now entering its seventh week, it’s worth asking what may seem like an obvious question: What are we doing this for?
For Democrats, that’s easy to answer. They are demanding the Trump administration change the department’s approach to immigration enforcement, in particular by making reforms to the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Without a majority in either house of Congress, tying up the purse strings for DHS in the Senate is the Democrats’ only negotiating tool. Doing so has not been great at expediting an end to the deadlock, nor does it seem prudent to hold up funding for homeland security at a time when the United States is at war with a prolific state sponsor of terrorism. But it has given Democrats an imperfect way to fight Trump on his administration’s signature issue and demonstrate to their base that they’re not simply rolling over.
The purpose of drawing out this fight is much less obvious for President Trump and the GOP, however. Playing hardball with Democrats while the situation at major American airports deteriorates hasn’t demonstrably strengthened their hand. It hasn’t advanced Trump’s immigration agenda. It certainly hasn’t reversed the slide in support for Republicans as the midterm elections approach.
The administration had implicitly ceded ground even before the partial shutdown began on February 14. Following a disastrous few weeks in immigration enforcement in Minneapolis in January, where aggressive tactics led to the death of two American citizens at the hands of federal agents, the White House sidelined field leadership and sent border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to cool things down. By mid-February, Homan had announced the department would be winding down its surge of officers and enforcement operations in Minneapolis. Two weeks later, Trump fired Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary and the face of Trump’s second-term immigration policy. Her replacement, the recently confirmed Markwayne Mullin, has at least paid lip service to a kinder, gentler approach to pursuing Trump’s immigration agenda.
So it bears repeating: What, exactly, has all of this been for? That question looms over not just the DHS funding impasse but so much of Trump’s chaotic second term so far. The answer ought to be depressing for the president’s supporters: not much.
On immigration, the president’s commendable achievements on closing the southern border have been overshadowed by the harsh, questionable, and counterproductive interior deportation strategy. On the economy, whatever boon may have come from renewing Trump’s first-term tax cuts has been muddled by the president’s spasmodic approach to the economically dubious policy of tariffs and trade protectionism. Compounding that are the economic effects of the current war with Iran, which, it bears emphasizing, is already deeply unpopular with the American people—despite the very clear indications that America has achieved significant military successes there.
The political result of all of this is abysmal approval ratings for Trump and the sense that his party is on the path to a wipeout at the polls in November—and with very little in the way of lasting achievements.
That dearth of any notable success stands in sharp contrast to past midterm waves that swept the governing majority out of power. The 2010 elections saw generational turnover within the House of Representatives, with Republicans netting 62 seats and a massive, 49-seat majority. Longtime Democratic seats across the country flipped to the GOP, many of which (particularly in the South and Midwest) have remained in the Republican column ever since. It was, as then-President Barack Obama called it, a “shellacking” for his Democratic Party.
And what did Obama have to show for it? Only a massive health care law that bears his name, codified insurance coverage for preexisting conditions, and has been largely untouchable despite Republicans railing against it for years afterward. Obamacare was the culmination of decades of liberal policy planning and political maneuvering, and its passage was the centerpiece of Republican messaging against vulnerable Democratic incumbents that year. Was it worth it to lose a House majority over? Democrats seemed to think so.
Or even consider the midterm election from Trump’s first round in the White House, when anti-Trump sentiment among many middle-class voters led to a purge of Republican representatives in the suburbs of the Northeast, Midwest, and California. Democrats netted 41 House seats in 2018, their largest haul in a single midterm since 1974, setting up the conditions that allowed for both of Trump’s impeachments. Nevertheless, Republicans could look at the passage of the aforementioned tax cuts as a major achievement to soften the blow of losing the majority.
Identifying a similar consolation prize will be a challenge, if and when the Republicans lose their narrow majority in 2026. It’s unlikely Trump’s only notable legislative priority, the SAVE America Act, can pass the Senate, where it’s currently languishing. The bill is neither a big spending bill nor a longtime major policy goal for Republicans or conservatives but rather an elections administration bill with provisions requiring a photo ID to vote among other federal mandates. The legislation is of intense interest only to the most plugged in GOP partisans but has nowhere near the support of a broader coalition of voters. Even if it could pass the Senate, the bill’s aims to target supposed widespread voter fraud could run counter to Republican interests in the medium and long term.
Otherwise, there’s no significant legislation, past or future. No codified change to domestic policy that will transform the country and fulfill Republican hopes and dreams. No evident payoff to spending down the governing party’s political capital.
To paraphrase The Office’s Creed Bratton, if Trump and the Republicans can’t create something enduring with all this power, then what’s this all been about? What are they working toward?
