Power without voters: How the shutdown reveals a broken democracy

Republish this articleThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. We encourage republication of our original content. Please copy the HTML code in the textbox below, preserving the attribution and link to the article's original location, and only make minor cosmetic edits to the content on your site.Power without voters: How the shutdown reveals a broken democracy by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis, The Real News Network October 29, 2025 Power without voters: How the shutdown reveals a broken democracy by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis, The Real News Network October 29, 2025 https://youtu.be/xdWS161BomI As the government shutdown stretches into its fourth week, Republicans are managing the crisis as if democratic accountability no longer applies—stalling Congress, ducking public scrutiny, and holding lifesaving ACA tax credits and SNAP benefits hostage for partisan gain. The result is immediate and unequal harm: millions risk losing healthcare while one-man rule, dark money, and gerrymandered advantage erode what little democracy we have left. Reporters Taya Graham and Stephen Janis break it all down in this installment of the Inequality Watch. Studio / Post-Production: David Hebden Written by: Stephen Janis The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. Taya Graham: Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to our Inequality Watch Reaction Report, the show where we break down how money and wealth control and warp our government and the way we live today. Along with my reporting partner Stephen Janis. Hello, Stephen. Stephen Janis: Hey Taya. How are you? Doing Taya Graham: Well. Today we're going to break down a very troubling aspect of the current government shutdown, namely that Republicans are managing it like the end of democracy is near. And this is not just about voting or the electoral system in general, which is constantly under assault, but rather how a lack of democratic accountability can affect the actions in even the psychology of a party and how it uses and even abuses power. Now Stephen, before we dig into this, and this might sound like an odd question, but why do we care about democracy? Stephen Janis: Well, the thing is that so far in the history of civilization, the only system we have that can create any sort of accountability chain in government and in power is a democracy. It's not perfect. It is obviously messy as we all know, for those of us who live in it, but is actually a system that has some sense of accountability and some tendrils of accountability in a system that is infested with power and become increasingly, I think more overpowered. So it's the only thing we have at this point. That's why it's worth discussing. Taya Graham: What was it Winston Churchill who said Democracy is the worst system we have, but it's better than all the other Stephen Janis: Ones. Yeah, precisely. I mean, it's messy, it's ugly. It oftentimes doesn't work. And I think in a lot of cases people can argue over the past 20 years it has stopped working. But that's part of some of the things we'll be talking about, how this is not working and why it's still worth trying to preserve it. Taya Graham: Okay, so just a brief overview to start out with so we get everyone up to speed. It's been almost 24 days since Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a deal to keep the government open. The Republicans say they want a clean CR or a continuing resolution to keep the government funded, and the Democrats said not so fast critical Obamacare or a tax credits were set to expire at the end of the year. And Democrats said they would not vote for the CR unless Republicans made a deal to reauthorize them. Now, this was not bickering at the margins of a technocratic public policy. This debate has real consequences. 24 million Americans get health insurance through the A CA. The tax credits passed during the pandemic were meant to ensure that more Americans could actually afford health insurance. Now, the CBO or a Congressional budget office estimates 2.2 million people could lose health insurance if these credits are not renewed. Now you add that to the Medicare cuts in the big beautiful bill and some people estimate that up to 15 million Americans could lose insurance. And Senator Bernie Sanders says that it could be an additional 50,000 Americans that die. So the Democrats aren't budging, but neither are the Republicans. But what we're going to focus on is how the Republicans approach to this particular debate signal something based on our coverage of Capitol Hill. We think Republicans are telegraphing with their handling of the shutdown that the concept of being accountable to their voters is fading and fading fast. That's what we're going to break down the four ways Republicans are signaling that democracy might be on its way out the door. Now, briefly, Stephen, before we start on our list, why is this even a question? Why do you think Republicans are so confident that democracy is on the way out, that they have no obligations to their voters or their people who put them in their office, let alone the rest of their constituents? Stephen Janis: Well tell you, it just seems like Republicans have a structural advantage that is growing and growing as we've seen in this redistricting battle, Republicans are going to end up with net 5, 10, 15, 20 seats. Who knows? Then you have dark money in the political system. It just keeps growing with billionaires like Elon Musk and a Facebook owner like Mark Zuckerberg pouring more and more money into more and more things. And Trump literally earning $3.2 billion while in office from crypto. The amount of concentrated power that is dedicated towards conservative Republicans just keeps growing. And then of course we had a press conference we just covered recently that you're going to talk about that might be even worse for Democrats. Taya Graham: Oh, the press conference you mentioned was about section two of the Civil Rights Act and we attended it and we listened to the concerns of the African-American caucus people who warned that this issue before the Supreme Court could dramatically alter the diversity of our elected representatives. Let's just take a moment to listen to a clip of what they were saying Earlier today, the Supreme Court began oral arguments in Louisiana v Callus, a case that places section two of the voting rights squarely in the crosshairs of this court's conservative super majority. Let me be clear, this case threatens to dismantle one of the last remaining safeguards against racial discrimination in our electoral system and the stakes could not be higher. Stephen Janis: So today as you can see, you have many districts that were predominantly African-American that tend to elect more Democrats just going by the wayside. And some people estimate 19 to 20 seats could be permanently on the Republican side. So really what you have is a system that's breaking down a system where there's some sort of alignment between the general populace and the governing body and it's breaking down, and I think Republicans are ready to take advantage of that. Taya Graham: Okay, now let's go to the four ways Republicans are telling us they think democracy is a thing of the past. Number one, speaker Johnson and his extended vacation. Okay, so one thing we noticed covering the hill over the past four weeks is that there's nobody home. I said this before, but it's really something to witness and it's something that's hard to comprehend when an elective body simply refuses to do its job. But speaker Mike Johnson has shut the house down and refuses to call everyone back to office. And just a reminder, they are all still getting paid. As we know, Congress and the House of Representatives is also called the People's House because the elected body is meant to be the one that's most intertwined with the desires and the needs of the people. But instead what we have is the house of crickets mean. You can literally hear crickets in there's hallways, there's nothing going on there. But Stephen, what do you think? Was this a signal from Republicans that they're not worried about democracy or their constituents? Stephen Janis: Yeah, I think the fact that the most representative body that we have, the House of Representatives doesn't even go to work, isn't even called into session, is really, really telling. I mean to me in some ways the House of Representatives like the circulatory system of democracy, you have people being elected every two years. So they're supposed to be really in touch with their constituents and they're doing nothing, no hearings, no public meetings, no press conferences. And also it should be noted that Republicans literally have not shown up for press conferences in the places where we normally as reporters get access to them for months and now it's even worse. So really to see that this really basic essential body in our body politic just absolutely shut down is I think telling. It's like we closed them all, it's over no more getting together and any way you could solve a crisis like this particular healthcare, the a CA tax credit issue and the shutdown is by collaborating. In some ways it's something being forced to collaborate because if people are in their office and people are going to hearings and people are forced to circulate, maybe something would happen, maybe someone would get an idea, maybe someone would come up with a compromise. But having it completely shut down is saying democracy just doesn't matter. The most representative body is out of work, out to lunch, nothing's happening. So I think democracy is not happening. I think it's pretty clear. Taya Graham: I mean, Stephen, it seems like these republicans have absolutely evaporated. I mean, they're not going to their town halls normally. You catch 'em on the steps or you could catch 'em at a press conference. I think the last press conference that we saw that was sort of a natural one was when Doge was still Stephen Janis: Full effect. Yeah, we just have to walk up on it. And that was kind of the last time I saw a Republican in the wild, Taya Graham: And that's when you got to catch up with Pete Sessions and now you can barely find one. Stephen Janis: You can't find 'em anywhere. Taya Graham: But for the record, this isn't all Republicans, but it certainly is the loudest ones. So we made a point of asking senators what they've heard from Republicans behind the scenes about how they really want to vote. And I think you actually asked Senator Amy Klobuchar, and we might have a clip we can run here and then you can respond. Senator, if you heard from anyone from the other side, any proposal on the tax credits, anyone in the Senate? Has anyone talked to you or proposed anything? People have been pretty out front about saying this is something we want to talk to. We care about healthcare. We know there's a lot of people in our districts and behind closed doors are even more clear about that, that they agree with us that you don't want to have these healthcare premiums double in just a month and do nothing about it when in so many of their constituents, particularly some of these red states which are increasingly going purple. I footnote that didn't take the Medicaid expansion. So they rely very much on these state plans under the Affordable Care Act. So it is the problem we have is that now that Donald Trump has returned from his successful trip to the Mideast, now that he's back, he prides himself in the art of the deal and it's time for him to make a deal. I don't believe they on their own, no matter how well intentioned some of my Republican colleagues and I'm friends with, many of them are that they on their own or these house members on their own that won't even come into work because they don't want to vote on the Epstein files that they are going to on their own come to the table. Donald Trump is going to have to call in the leaders and make an agreement. And I would suggest that today is a really good day to start doing it. Stephen Janis: Well, as you can see, she says that behind the scenes they do understand this healthcare is an issue, but they're afraid to do anything because Donald Trump is pretty much calling the shots. So basically he's way laid a representative body that's supposed to be independent, and it's not. I think it's pretty clear about her response that it's not independent, even though Republicans know they're walking into a serious crisis for people, for Americans. Taya Graham: And reason number two, the Republican's disengagement from the needs of the voters despite the fact that red state voters use both Medicaid and the A CA or Obamacare, they are literally shutting the government down to ensure their own constituents don't have access to healthcare. Stephen, I'm just going to read some facts here. Now, Louisiana has four of the eight Republican held congressional districts with the most Medicaid expansion. Enrollees house speaker, Mike Johnson's Northwest Louisiana District is one of them. Add that's over half of all the A marketplace enrollees, I think that's about 57%. They live in congressional districts represented by a Republican. Stephen. What gives here, what about this disconnect between the constituents needs and their representatives actions? What does this say to you about how Republicans are viewing our democracy? Stephen Janis: Well, what they're doing is what we call before we've talked about this called constituent disengagement, which means that they are slowly, not slowly, probably rapidly disconnecting from the needs of their constituents and the way they conduct their politics. Speaker Johnson has wrote up a lot of red flags, all sorts of strange and let's say falsity falsehoods about healthcare system. But the bottom line is he is literally selling out, or I would say just abandoning his own constituents who are heavenly reliant upon these systems like Medicaid and like the A CA. And he's simply saying no. And coming up with conjuring reasons like immigrants, which of course is completely false, but also really strange saying just because a couple of immigrants might get some healthcare which they deserve, like any other human being, I'm just going to deny all my constituents healthcare. This is so irrationally disconnected that you can't say you have a functional democracy in terms of aligning which democracy should in some way, as we call it, accountability system that aligns the constituents with the politics of the representatives. And here we see this complete, complete disconnect. And so that's why we're saying they're telegraphing something like, Hey, my constituents don't care what I do in public policy. And that's just something even deeper about how our electoral process works. Taya Graham: Reason number three, Republicans are intentionally targeting democratic programs, democratic states and federal employees. Now, this is perhaps a less obvious example, but it's actually quite telling, just for example, since the shutdown was announced, the Trump administration has canceled a critical infrastructure project to rebuild a 100 and 50-year-old tunnel connecting New Jersey to Manhattan. And Trump has also said, and I quote, the Democrats are getting killed on the shutdown because we're closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we were opposed to. We're not closing up Republican programs because we think they work. Stephen, what does this say about how Republicans are thinking about the future of democracy? Because certainly we're all Americans, whether we vote blue, red, independent or green. Stephen Janis: But what's even more issuing about this is that it used to be there was this sort of this general wisdom that if you could expand your base in a democracy, more power to you, if you could somehow sway some Democrats to become Republicans, you're in good shape. This idea that Democrats in blue states and then the Republicans in blue states don't matter at all, is a very weird phenomenon in a functioning democracy always. You would think that democracy maximizes or forces people to maximize their political appeal. It should be an actual sort of inherent logical through line in a democracy. But really what we're seeing here is he's just saying, ah, forget about all you guys. I don't care. I don't want to expend my base. I don't want extra voters. I don't want to do anything. I mean, we can even remember George W. Bush, his fixation on Hispanic voters thinking he was going to expand his base. He always talked about that, trying to build a bigger, broader tent. And that seems to be absolutely missing from this equation, which means to a certain extent, the idea of democracy is not working, or at least not a working process or idea in the minds of people like Trump and the Republicans because they're literally saying, these people just aren't Americans. They're just not worth our time. We're going to cut everything ahead and we don't care if they hate us. And it's a very strange thing because it really, I think speaks to a dysfunctional democracy and the city of democracy becoming more and more diseased. I don't really understand it, to be honest with you, Taya Graham: Stephen. It's amazing because you pointed out such a good example. It used to be about coalition building, polling Stephen Janis: Voters. We had the biggest tent Taya Graham: In Maryland, which is considered a blue state. We've had I think at least three if not four terms of Republican governors in the past Stephen Janis: 20 years. Yeah, Larry Hogan was governor for eight years, Taya Graham: Right? He won twice. So it's not that Democrats won't vote for Republicans. You're supposed to try to win over everyone. And apparently if anyone's ever voted Democrat or has a misfortune of living in a Democratic city or state, you simply don't Stephen Janis: Count. And I think without that incentive or imperative to expand and to create a broader base, then you get more and more or you get less and less broad national goals or the ability to execute broad national consensus policies because it just becomes impossible because you're worried about a smaller and smaller group of people and their concerns are driving your policies. You're not going to really think nationally. And I think really logically. And so that's why this is a problem, and that's what I think Republicans are telegraphing by saying, Hey, we don't care about any blue state. We're just going to cut you all off. It just means that democracy's not functioning in my opinion. Taya Graham: And reason number four, the one man rule. So one aspect of the shutdown we've been covering is asking Democratic senators if anything is happening behind the scenes that might lead to a deal to end this government shutdown. And we've put the questions to several senators, including Amy Klobuchar, as I mentioned before, and also Senator Chris Van Holland and Stephen. I think their answers are really revealing. Let's listen to Van Holland this time and then we'll talk about it. Senator, we've been asking this question to all the Democrat senators, democratic senators. Has anyone on the Republican side made any indication that they're willing to negotiate on the A tax credits at this point? Well, the short answer is no. I mean, you've seen this speaker of the House send his Republican members away on a five week paid vacation, and he says it's his way or the highway. Donald Trump has refused to negotiate, and unfortunately in this moment, Donald Trump is the only character matters in the Republican party because you have a rubber stamp Congress. You have Republicans in the House and Senate who just do the bidding of Donald Trump. I mean, they contracted out their constitutional responsibilities to president of the United States. That's not the way the system was designed. It was supposed to be checks and balances, not plank checks for the President of the United States, but that's what we have right now. Now, Donald Trump, and I'm glad he is been negotiating in the Middle East, but he should negotiate right here at home in opening the government. Stephen Janis: Yeah, I mean, he's saying the same thing that Klobuchar was saying, which is that the Republicans as a body have no agency. They have no ability to negotiate. They can't do anything without one man. And that doesn't sound democratic to me. I mean, understand there are leaders in a party who could influence and shape policy, but they're saying, I can't even move. I can't even open the door. I can't even have a conversation about it unless Donald Trump pers. And of course Donald Trump is a billionaire surrounded by billionaires. So in a sense, you're saying, yeah, I got to check with the oligarchy first before I start talking and saying something out of line because if the oligarchy doesn't allow me to talk, well then I just can't talk to you about this. I don't care if there are millions of people who are going to die or lose their health insurance because of the bad public policy. If the oligarchs don't give me the go ahead. It feels like the three wise men from training day. You got to go in and have lunch with them and get them to say it's okay to something. Literally, both senators said this, and I want you to know, we asked them independently of each other. They both said the same thing. Republicans won't even breathe without this man. And that does sound like a monarchy to me and really puts no king's days in a different perspective when literally the Republicans aren't willing to do a thing without their leader. And I think this has been something consistent, and we're seeing that's why this shutdown has been so sclerotic and so not moving at all because you have one person on one side and then a coalition on the other that is inherently weakened, and it's just really scary. Taya Graham: Well, Stephen, I think what you're giving me is that the basic idea that Trump is the only vote that matters, might be the impetus for this entire premise that we've been talking about this whole time. True, true. Taya Graham: I mean, I guess in other words, I think they believe that not only can Trump sway by or otherwise influence election, but his wealth and his collection of billionaires can funnel enough dark money into a race to effectively buy Taya Graham: Now this use of dark money isn't new, but we've never seen it used quite so out in the open with such obvious quid pro quos. Right? Stephen Janis: Taya Graham: Stephen, what do you think? Stephen Janis: Well, no, I mean, I think it was really interesting last year when Elon Musk said, I'm going to give $250 million, which was completely impossible for Citizens United, and it was just like this idea that a couple billionaires this way or that way could just literally buy, I mean, he literally went into Pennsylvania and tried to buy votes, but really more so just this amount of moneys sloshing around the system from so few sources creates a concentration of power, natural concentration of power that's absolutely antidemocratic. I mean, I don't think you can totally buy an election totally, Taya Graham: But not yet. Stephen Janis: But this amount of money and then combined with what we were talking about with the social media apps that are owned by the billionaires, it's getting really, really close. But I think what we're seeing that is Republicans are signaling this, right? They're intransigent. They will not negotiate. Really, you got to remember this. Every shutdown, there's been negotiations. There's been no negotiations in this shutdown, and that's why it's going to probably be the longest we'll ever Taya Graham: Stephen Janis: Well, I mean, we don't know. It could go on forever. I mean, there doesn't seem to be any movement whatsoever on any side. Taya Graham: It's funny, when we were talking about this the other day, Stephen, I said, during a shutdown, eventually a deal is made, but the problem is how much pain we endure in the meantime. And now I'm not even sure that that deal is going to be made. Stephen Janis: No, I mean, I don't think Trump himself will make a deal because he'll look at it as a loss for him, and I don't think he cares that much about people's healthcare, about the A CA. They all kind of trash it, even though it was a Republican idea to begin with. Taya Graham: Well, I'm also worried that some of the members of Congress aren't worried about the A CA considering that their healthcare and also their checks, their salaries are still coming in, so they're not worried about it either. Stephen Janis: It might just come down to Thanksgiving when air traffic controllers aren't working and no one can get home for Thanksgiving. Maybe it'll be then, but in the meantime, the oligarchs are still getting rich and Trump is still getting rich. He's tearing down the east wing without really asking anybody, and so they're just operating. This is the thing. We don't, I think, have a functional democracy at this point, and that's why this deal is not going to get done. Taya Graham: Stephen, it's really interesting that you mentioned that because my immediate thought was, oh, we're not living in a new gilded age. We only have millions of people about to lose their healthcare as a golden ballroom is being built. I mean, Stephen Janis: Or as we're saying, Taya Graham: The imagery couldn't be more stark. Stephen Janis: Or what always really pissed me off was when I saw that we were saying 20 billion in Argentina, I looked up their healthcare system. Everybody in Argentina gets healthcare, Taya Graham: Stephen Janis: As a human right, even immigrants, Taya Graham: And they should have it. They should have Stephen Janis: Taya Graham: But we don't. Stephen Janis: We're shutting down the government to keep people sick. We're literally shutting down the government to, I hate to say this, but to kill people because if people don't have access to healthcare, people die prematurely or die who otherwise might've survived. We're literally shutting down the government saying, we're not going to talk about it. By the way, the idea that Republicans have said, well, we'll open the government then we'll talk about it. Well, right now, people are getting their bills from Obamacare and they're getting their premiums and seeing what they're going to be, and it's just been insane. Oh, Taya Graham: Absolutely. Stephen Janis: The numbers that have been coming across tens of thousands of dollars in increases, so you can't do it in January, it's not going to work. People have to enroll now, so it has to be done now. Taya Graham: And that's the thing they said. We can talk about it later. Well, they could have talked about it earlier. We didn't have to come to this point. Everyone seems to be saying, oh, well, we have to sign this continuing resolution now. You actually could have negotiated on healthcare months ago and you chose not to, which is why we have gotten to this point because this is the only thing that Democrats could have done to try to fight to keep these tax credits unfortunately, Stephen Janis: Ask you this, America, why in Argentina that needs a $20 billion bailout, still gives healthcare free healthcare to their entire population is a human right. Why can they do that? And we're supposedly the richest country on earth, and we can, it's insane. And yet we have to endure this idea that we can throw this money around any way we want to, but we can't throw the money to save our own people. It's so insane. And I think it could only exist in a democracy that is not functioning correctly and a democracy that is defined by inequality, defined by it, and run by it, and part of an oligarchy at this point. There's no other way to explain it. There's just no other, how could you even make this decision? It's not rational. It's just not rational to say, I am going to kick 2.2 million people off healthcare so I can give a tax cut to a billionaire. I know it's been said over and over Taya Graham: Again, but it needs Stephen Janis: To be said again. But it needs to be said over and over again because people have to just recognize that that's where we are in this country, and it's really, really, really unsettling and insane. Taya Graham: You know what, Stephen, this was a fairly bleak assessment, but it was also a necessary one. I mean, just like you said earlier in our discussion, democracy is supposed to be an accountability system. There's supposed to be checks and balances and people put under the microscope when they're working against the interest of we the people. And I think what we've been witnessing on Capitol Hill is the breakdown of the basic functions of accountability. And just to be clear, this is not an ideologically situated argument. I have seen terrible abuses of government powers in my own backyard courtesy of one party rule here in Baltimore City and Baltimore, Maryland. We have had decades of over-policing and law enforcement abuse courtesy of the Democrats, and we've seen a system that has doled out tax breaks to rich developers while working class people and people like me who live in Baltimore City pay their taxes and foot their bill. So I don't think this is a result of flawed liberal policies, but rather a lack of accountability, which is compelled by having meaningful opposition waiting in the wings. It is a critical counter to power that seems to be absolutely non-existent in our nation's capital, and I think it is to the detriment of all of us. And let's not forget hovering over all of this is the fact that there are many people who think part of the reason Speaker Johnson has shut down the house is to prevent the swearing in of Arizona Democratic Congresswoman elect a grava, which would allow the investigation into billionaire sex predator, Jeffrey Epstein, to widen and perhaps ensnare other enablers and predators. Now, Grava won a special election nearly a month ago, but has yet to be sworn in, and critics have said Johnson has refused to do so because she'll be the final person to sign a discharge petition to force a vote on the subpoena, to force the Justice Department to release all the Epstein files. Curva has sued to be sworn in, but Stephen, the implications are disturbing. The entire House of Representatives was rendered mute to protect basically a bunch of wealthy sexual predators. And if that doesn't convince you that our democracy's on the ropes, I don't know what will Stephen, before I sign off here, do you have any final thoughts? Well, Stephen Janis: Let's just admit this. Speaker Johnson has the will to shut down Congress to prevent a subpoena for sex predator files, Taya Graham: Stephen Janis: He doesn't have the wherewithal to do it, to give healthcare to his own freaking people. You can judge a democracy by how its power is aligned and with whom. And if it's about tax breaks for billionaires but not healthcare for the rest of us, then who is our democracy aligned with who? And that will tell you all you need to know that is with predators and billionaires and not with Sikh Americans. Taya Graham: Well said. As always, I promise you, we will continue to cover the nation's capital and of course, any new developments in this continuing shutdown through a very specific and we think relevant prism, the accelerating effects of our country's wealth inequality, we will be there asking questions to ensure that the billionaires who run this country, Republican or Democrat, cannot do so in darkness. It's not easy, and it certainly can at times seem futile, but we think despite the obstacles, it is worth it to bring you a different perspective than our mainstream media counterparts. News of four, and by the people. That's our promise. I'm Taya Graham, along with Stephen Janis. Stephen Janis: Thank you, Taya. Taya Graham: And we're your inequality, watchdogs reporting for you. This article first appeared on The Real News Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. </script