You may not have noticed it, what with all the other distractions in Washington, but we're fast approaching the possibility of another government shutdown. The federal fiscal year begins in October, and there is no budget in place yet. The two parties in Congress aren't even talking to each other yet about what to do about it, and they don't have a whole lot of time to get something passed. For Democrats, the question is whether they should shut the government down in what essentially would be an act of political protest, or whether they should just bargain for a few of their issues and accept pretty much everything else Republicans want to do.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer holds the cards in this game, since the Senate has to pass a bill that can be filibustered. So the Republicans will need at least seven Democrats to vote for it. Schumer has already faced this dilemma before, and he came down on the side of keeping the government open. It is unclear what he's planning to do this time.

Ezra Klein just wrote a very in-depth article on this choice in the New York Times, which does an admirable job of digging into both everything that is wrong with the Trump administration, and the pros and cons of Democrats shutting the government down or going along with the Republicans in an effort to get a few of their issues advanced.

Klein talked to Schumer back in March, when the first shutdown showdown happened, and Schumer explained his reasoning for not shutting the government down:

The argument [Chuck] Schumer made was threefold. First, [Donald] Trump was being stopped in the courts. There were dozens of cases playing out against him, and he was losing again and again and again. Shut down the government, and you might shut down the courts.

Second, DOGE was trying to gut the executive branch. When the government falls into a funding crisis, the executive gets more authority to decide where the money the government does have goes. In that chaos, DOGE could go further and faster.

After all, it's Democrats who want the government to work. It was Trump and DOGE looking for every opportunity to dismantle it. A shutdown wasn't leverage against Trump. It was leverage against the Democrats' own priorities.

Third, the market was quaking at the threat of Trump's tariffs. Trump had promised a strong economy and low prices, and instead he was creating chaos. If Democrats triggered a shutdown at the exact moment Trump was creating an economic crisis, they would confuse who was to blame for the chaos -- was it Trump or them? It's the first rule of politics: When your opponents are drowning, do not throw them a lifeline.

And I thought there was a fourth argument: Democrats had not prepared for a shutdown. They had not explained why they were shutting the government down or what they wanted to achieve. They had no strategy. They had no message. The demand I was hearing them make was that the spending bill needed more bipartisan negotiation. It was unbearably lame.

That was then. This is now. And Klein points out that none of the three arguments Schumer previously made are still valid. To begin with, Trump may have lost in the lower courts over and over again, but the Supreme Court has been tilting heavily in his favor.

Schumer's argument in March was that the courts were stopping Trump; let them do their work. What we can say in September is that no, John Roberts is not going to stop Donald Trump.

Second, the scale of DOGE's assault on the government has shrunk. Trump and Elon Musk went through a messy and public breakup. But the real reason it didn't continue, I suspect, is that it's Trump appointees running these agencies now. They don't want their own agencies wrecked. They don't want to be blamed for the failures that might result. They need staff. And either way, the Supreme Court has given Trump vast power to reshape the federal work force in the way he chooses. He doesn't need a shutdown to do it.

Third, the markets have settled into whatever this new normal is, at least for now. Trump's tariffs are unpopular, but what damage they have done to him politically they have already done or they will do over time, as price increases squeeze Americans. We are not in a recession. The economy is not in chaos. Democrats cannot stand back and hope the markets will do their work for them.

But Klein's fourth reason is still valid, unfortunately. Government shutdowns almost never achieve much of anything, and while they do rouse the base voters with all the exciting news coverage, in the end even these people will wind up disappointed because the party shutting the government down never emerges as the "winner" -- instead, what invariably happens is that they wind up caving, due to all the negative effects of the shutdown (national parks being closed, people being furloughed and not being paid, etc.). So even the fervent base usually winds up disappointed in the end.

Why would the Democrats shut the government down? What is the overarching issue that they would be fighting for? There are numerous valid answers to that and yet here we are less than a month away from a shutdown, and nobody knows what strategy the Democrats are even contemplating right now. As Klein points out (emphasis in original):

Right now, Democrats have no power, so no one cares what they have to say. A shutdown would make people listen. But then Democrats would have to actually win the argument. They would need to have an argument. They would need a clear set of demands that kept them on the right side of public opinion and dramatized what is happening to the country right now.

. . .

Democrats would have to pick a small set of policies and stick to that. They would have to choose those policies wisely. They would have to hold the line even when it got tough.

And right now, Democrats have not picked those policies or settled on that message. Right now, they are no more prepared for a shutdown than they were in March.

And the clock is ticking, I might add.

Schumer got a lot of grief in March, for what was seen as his refusal to fight both Trump and the Republicans in Congress. If he strikes some deal again this time, he is likely to get even more political grief for doing so. Of course, it would depend on what was in this deal and how both Schumer and other Democrats sold it, but right now the Democratic base is itching for a fight -- any fight, win or lose.

My guess is that even if a shutdown happens, it will be just as performative as most of them wind up being. Democrats will fight hard, but in the end -- whether it takes days or weeks -- they will bow to reality and pass a budget before the Social Security checks (and all the rest of what the government does) are threatened. Whether they win some small face-saving concessions or not, Democrats will at least have made themselves relevant in Washington once again. That would be enough for a lot of the base right now, who are horrified at the daily parade of authoritarianism emanating from the White House.

Picking a fight you know you're going to lose is not a fun thing to contemplate. But there simply are no good options here.

There is one argument against a government shutdown which probably wouldn't be valid in today's political world, however. The biggest political fight during any shutdown is who should get blamed for it. To date, in every shutdown that I can personally recall, the Republicans wound up being blamed by the public. And sometimes this blame led to electoral losses in the next election. But I don't think Democrats really have that to worry about, this time around.

Even if the public does lay most of the blame on the Democrats for shutting the government down, I seriously doubt that's going to be the top issue for many voters next November. What with the constant chaos from Trump, my guess is that a government shutdown will be long forgotten by the time people vote. And it might even help the Democrats, because they would finally be seen as at least attempting to stand up to Trump and fight back. A lot of the dismal polling on the Democratic Party is due to their own base becoming seriously disillusioned with Democrats in Congress. So showing some fight -- even knowing it will be a losing battle -- might boost their standings with the voters. There's no guarantee this would happen, but it might be worth a try at least.

I don't envy Chuck Schumer the dilemma he faces right now. Can the Democrats figure out which issues matter most and all get on board for waging a fight over them? Can they effectively communicate what those issues are to the public? Can they make Congress actually relevant again, instead of just being a rubber stamp for Trump? Can they make the Democratic Party actually relevant again? Should they pick a fight just for the sake of fighting? And will it all be worth it, even if they wind up losing in the end?

Those are tough questions, and there are no easy answers.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant