Well, here we are again. Another pointless, performative government shutdown.

The last real shutdown was also when Donald Trump was president, at the tail end of 2018 and lasting into 2019. Democrats had the majority in the House, Republicans had the majority in the U.S. Senate, and Trump was insisting that Congress fund the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

At the time, Democrats took the same position that Republicans are taking now: that negotiating while under the threat of a shutdown was unacceptable, so the roles have reversed — as they so often do in these cases.

That last shutdown stretched to 35 days before Trump finally caved, agreeing to sign a short-term stopgap funding measure and appropriating funds for the border wall on his own. During that shutdown fight, it seemed as if the Republicans were adrift with little, if any, cohesive strategy or plan. Now, it seems as if the shoes may be on the other feet, and the Democrats are in that position.

Ostensibly, this current shutdown fight is about health care benefits. Democrats are insisting that the enhanced tax credits for health insurance subsidies enacted during the pandemic be extended.

There are a couple of different ways to think about this demand. One is that it is thoroughly reasonable and centrist. The far left could have tossed out any number of other demands, like restricting immigration enforcement actions or arms sales to Israel. Those would have been complete nonstarters for Republicans, and likely wouldn’t have been things that even the majority of Democrats would have supported.

Even as outrage has grown on the left over Israel’s actions and immigration enforcement, Democrats running for reelection in swing districts — like Rep. Jared Golden — don’t want to spend all their time talking about them.

Health insurance seems like a winning issue. Theoretically, it appeals to much of Trump’s working-class base. During his abbreviated conversation with bipartisan congressional leadership the other day, Trump even seemed open to compromise, but nothing happened.

It’s also always hard to cut a benefit in Washington. We saw that during Trump’s first term, when Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain voted against it.

This is slightly different, as it was intended to be a temporary benefit during the pandemic, but unlike many other such programs, it didn’t come with fixed expiration date. So, here we are, still arguing about it.

That’s the Democrats’ position, but the Republicans have a strong one as well: that this was intended to be a temporary benefit, not a vast, permanent new expansion.

They also included a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which Republicans are trying to retroactively rename — that blunted the impact of those cuts in rural areas by increasing funding to rural hospitals. That makes the funding cuts more palatable to a huge swath of the Republican caucus, in both the House and the Senate. That helps explain why Republicans are so unified over the issue.

The one gap in that unity is suburban, swing-district Republicans, who didn’t get any special local help and who could end up being key votes. They’ll be targeted by Democrats in the general election — they’re sort of mirror images of Jared Golden, who’s a bit of a unicorn — if they keep the government shut down over this.

Then again, while they face enormous pressure from their districts over this, caving to the Democrats won’t really get them anything, either. They’ll be targeted next November no matter what.

So, they really face the choice of surrendering and getting nothing from the Democrats, or sticking with their party and getting help next year. That dynamic helps explain why, sometimes, it seems as if members of Congress vote against their own political self-interest, especially these days: the other party never offers them anything.

It used to be that they’d get a pass if they voted the right way, but no more. Now, the targets are the targets, and those in the hot seat just have to deal with it, regardless of how they vote.

So, really, at the end of the day the shutdown fight comes down to whether Trump is willing to take a stand. If he’s really committed to this, Republicans will probably hold together behind him; the question will be when Democrats cave.

Right now, it seems as if the president is committed to the fight, and it looks like this could be a long shutdown — possibly stretching past the record five years ago. We’ll see.