Firstly, the Trump administration is using the current shutdown as a legal justification to eliminate employees and cancel discretionary grants to Democratic states. But the administration's case that it does have the power to cut spending and fire employees unilaterally is made stronger by a government shutdown. So, if the point of the shutdown is to prevent the Trump administration from cutting funding to Democratic priorities, it's doing the opposite. The slightly more sophisticated case for Democrats' shutdown politics is that this, at last, could convince Republicans to eliminate the hated filibuster. It's the best tool they have to get the Trump administration to change course on its most ham- and iron-fisted tactics.