The big one

The US government is headed for a shutdown, maybe a long one

Update: I was absolutely wrong on this. The Republicans couldn’t put together a majority on anything, and Johnson ended up relying on the Democrats to pass a continuing resolution, just like McCarthy before him.

Government shutdowns, and threats of shutdown, have become routine in the US, with the result that no one much worries about them any more. Typically some kind of compromise is reached just as the deadline approaches, and government returns to quasi-normality.. Occasionally, bluffs are called and a ‘shutdown’ actually happens. Civil servants are sent home, public facilities are closed and so on. But the armed forces operate as normal, Social Security checks go out, and IOUs take the place of actual spending for various essential purposes. After a few weeks at the most, that produces enough pressure to deliver some kind of resolution. As far as I can see, that’s what most political commentators think will happen in November, when the next deadline is reached.

I foresee something more drastic and dangerous. It’s hard to imagine the Republicans in the House of Representatives agreeing on any set of demands for a spending bill, short of requiring Biden and Harris to resign and install Johnson as President* . But if they do come up with a program, it will be so extreme as to be totally unacceptable to Biden and the Democrats. And, the long history of blackmail efforts like this seems to have stiffened spines on the Democratic side.

So, there will probably be a shutdown. But how will it end? Leaving aside the fact that Johnson is a far-right extremist dedicated to the overthrow of US democracy, cutting any kind of deal with Biden would be signing his own resignation (but see below). On the other side, capitulation would doom Biden’s presidency.

That means the shutdown has to continue past the symbolic stage of closing national parks and so on, to the point where it is doing serious damage to the US economy and society, with debt downgrades, personal and corporate bankruptcies and so on. That will still not be enough to shift the Republican extreme right, so no deal will be achieved with Republicans alone. What are the remaining possibilities? Here are a few I’ve thought about, roughly in order of probability

* Johnson cuts a deal with the Democrats, passing a continuing resolution in return for the promise of some abstentions, or even active support, when the Freedom Caucus try to vote him out. This seems the most likely option to me, but it will be very painful on both sides

* Biden capitulates. I still see this as unlikely, but the pressure to do so will be immense.

* A handful of Republicans remember that they are supposed to care about the country they govern, and cross the floor, knowing they will lose their seats and face the obloquy of most of their (former) friends and supporters.

* Biden invokes emergency powers to reopen the government and defies the Supreme Court to stop him. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know what these powers might be, but the issue is essentially political. Unless he is impeached or otherwise prevented from acting, emergency powers are what the President says they are, a point made by Abraham Lincoln at the beginning of the Civil War (a relevant precedent in the current state of the US).

I haven’t seen anyone else predicting such a crisis, so maybe I’m over-estimating the difficulty of reaching a resolution. IIRC, I was among the first to predict a crisis like this when the Republicans retook the House in 2010, ** but I couldn’t see a resolution then either, and one was reached in the end.

* Joking, but not really - I can imagine at least some of them demanding this, with the proviso that Johnson would then resign in favour of Trump.

** There was a debt limit crisis in 2011 and a 16-day shutdown in 2013.