The shutdown is here, and Americans everywhere are wondering, “What now?” The answer is simple: Democrats need to wake up and recognize when they’re flogging a losing argument. Their demands—$1.5 trillion in new spending, a permanent extension of COVID-era emergency programs, and taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants—aren’t just unreasonable, they’re politically toxic. These are not winning issues, and no amount of finger-pointing at Republicans is going to change that.

On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance went on Fox News to address what he bluntly called the Schumer Shutdown. As usual, Vance delivered a sharp, commonsense breakdown of the situation. His first point was on the shutdown itself—reminding viewers that Republicans had already passed a clean funding bill, and it was Democrats who chose to block it:

Our vice president noted: You don’t shut the government down because you have a policy disagreement. These are two separate questions. There are essential services that have already been appropriated, where we’ve already agreed, you know, we want our military to have a certain amount of payment. We want air traffic control to have a certain amount, we want to ensure that a certain number of people are able to access food benefits. You don’t shut down the government because you have a policy disagreement over a totally separate issue and that’s what the Democrats have done, and it really is astonishing.

To go back 20 years, and pretty much the entire time, that I’ve paid attention to American politics, I have seen Democrats stand before the American people and say, “You don’t shut down the government because you’re not getting what you want.” And here they are, last night, the far-left faction of Senate Democrats, they shut down the government.