Resolves YES iff the US Office of Personnel Management announces a federal government shutdown (including a partial shutdown) due to a lapse in appropriations on the operating status page by 11:59pm ET on January 31st, 2026.
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I'm already too invested in this, and I was vibe-trading to begin with.
@SemioticRivalry Counterpoint (against my trade just now). Do you think the American people are primed right now to correlate the following?
The government staying open
ICE [edit: and/or DHS] has funding
If not, the spin machine keeps on spinning.
"Another complication for Democrats is that Republicans passed a one-time infusion of $170 billion for immigration enforcement, including ICE, which would be legally available for the Trump administration to spend even if DHS funding lapses."
Otoh, it will impact eg. FEMA, and heavy snowstorms are coming.
However, Rosen, who was a part of the Democratic eight that ended the shutdown last year, did express some disapproval.
@Lilemont that’s not how politics works. A shutdown is a win for the Democrats no matter if it actually is effective or not. The GOP has no incentive to back down either. It could be a long shutdown.
@JimAusman I don't think it's that clear cut and IMHO the democrats came out last shutdown with a black eye
@JimAusman It's a win if the public blame the GOP maybe, which is not a foregone conclusion, because it's a bit of an unprecedented situation. However, the GOP would have an incentive to back down, due to the base rate where they received an equal amount or most of the blame for every gov shutdown.
@Bandors if you look at the polls it was a win for the Democrats. It’s not clear why but apparently shutting off SNAP benefits did not make Trump voters happy.
@JimAusman Idk if I'd call it a win for the Democrats. All the polling I checked doesn't show much of a difference.
@Bandors ChatGPT’s take. I can give references if you like.
Q: The recent one. Did it impact republican or democratic approval ratings the most?
Republicans — by a lot. Democrats were already overwhelmingly negative on Trump, so there was much less “room to fall.”
In the AP-NORC poll taken November 6–10, 2025 (during the long shutdown that began October 1, 2025):
Republicans: approval of how Trump was managing the federal government fell to 68%, down from 81% in March 2025 (-13 points).
Independents: fell to 25%, down from 38% in March 2025 (-13 points).
The reporting characterizes the drop as being driven “in large part” by declines among Republicans and independents.
@JimAusman Couple points of difference, not much. Polling has a few points of error either way anyways.
Not really clear cut win.
no pre-prompting:
https://chatgpt.com/share/6976b1db-4fd4-8011-9182-4b7caa197200
@Bandors Trump's approval rating took two big dips. The largest one was because of the Liberation Day Tariffs and the second-largest one occurred during the shutdown. Coincidentally, the 2025 elections also took place during the shutdown and it was considered a very strong night for Dems.
I don't really think polls that allow respondents to easily assign "a fair bit" of blame is useful in telling us much. "Man, why can't they just get along?" is a pretty common sentiment amongst a large swath of voters. Those percentages are really just Independents + the partisan voters of the other side. If we're trying to judge who "won" the shutdown in terms of public support, asking voters who they blame more is more useful.
This poll question is from the same poll that your image is from.
@BURNTramenNoOdLeS I don't like this poll because there are two options to vote against Republicans and only one option for democrats.
@BURNTramenNoOdLeS anyway, I don't really want to burn bridges with anyone here, so I'm going to stop commenting. Happy trading!
@Bandors That materially makes no difference. Just add up the blame on Trump + Republicans.
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Interestingly enough, a similar format was used in 2018 shutdown polls and it unfairly was misread to imply that Dems were being equally blamed to Republicans:
"A new Quinnipiac University survey found that 32 percent of voters believe congressional Democrats were primarily responsible for the recent government shutdown; 31 percent blame President Trump, and 18 percent blame congressional Republicans. A number of news outlets have thus focused on the fact that Democrats and Trump are about equally to blame in the public’s eye. Quinnipiac’s own write-up of their poll led with this description.
I think, though, that’s a bad interpretation of the data.
[...]
When you combine the people who blamed Trump and with those who blamed congressional Republicans, you end up with 49 percent of voters saying Republican politicians were at fault vs. 32 blaming Democrats.
Now, is there value in knowing how blame is apportioned between congressional Republicans and Trump? Sure, I guess. But their fates are tied together politically. Polls show that how voters feel about Trump is directly connected to whether they plan on voting for Democrats or Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. And those polls match past election results, which show the president’s approval rating is highly correlated with how his party does in the midterm election."
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-media-is-misreading-how-the-shutdown-blame-game-shook-out/