US Government shutdowns are somewhat pooh-poohed by conservatives in particular, because of their contempt for government in general, but, bear in mind, the longest government shutdown in history was under Donald Trump, and, it only lasted 35 days. There's actually a very good and simple reason why government shutdowns don't last very long in the US, and that's because no federal government agents, and not even the US military, are paid a thin dime while they're going on. Nothing. Not till they end. Sure, they get back pay when they're over, but, that doesn't help much if they go on for years, does it now? And, so, if they went on very long at all, even a few months, there would be massive loss of personnel in all services -- Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, ICE, Airport Security -- at the federal level, and, quite likely, a real risk of mutiny in the military as a whole, as service personnel ceased to be able to support their own families. All the federal law enforcement agents would quit, out of sheer necessity, and the US military would be in open revolt against their own government.

So, now that you understand precisely why government shutdowns don't last very long, you can understand just how powerful a position the Democrats are now in, now that the US population as a whole has had just about enough of the fascist tendencies of the Trump government. Effectively, the Democrats can virtually eliminate the entire US federal law enforcement service -- including and especially ICE -- by forcing them all to quit, or face starvation. They can put the US military in a position where they will actively revolt against Donald Trump, so that they can feed their families again. The Democrats can crush the entire federal government if they wish. And, at this time, the people would support them, they've had enough.

So, what's going to happen, exactly? I would suspect, at some point, enough pressure will be applied to the Trump administration that they will simply have no choice but to abandon most of their policies. ICE will be largely dismantled, the border will be opened up again, the cities will be demilitarized, funding will be reestablished to critical government agencies, that have been cut back.

Of course, the Senate could just abandon the filibuster. Then, the Republicans can do what they want. But, if that happens, when the Democrats take over again, they'll do exactly the same thing. And, Republicans wouldn't like that at all, would they now?