Each time President Donald Trump—nominally the leader for the entire country—has been asked about the government shutdown, he has replied with the rhetorical equivalent of a shrug, claiming that the situation is hurting “Democrat things” and that he is protecting the paychecks and priorities of his supporters. “The Democrats are getting killed on the shutdown because we’re closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we were opposed to,” he told reporters last Tuesday. “We’re not closing up Republican programs, because we think they work.”

Those words are backed by actions. The president has taken extraordinary steps over the past three weeks to weaponize the closure of the government, steering federal funds to shield his chosen beneficiaries from the shutdown’s harms even as he opportunistically damages the interests of his opponents. But despite Trump’s efforts, he has failed to split the shutdown into a red-blue binary of winners and losers. His MAGA base has already been affected by the shutdown, his denials notwithstanding—and the pain for the president’s supporters will increase significantly if the lapse in government funding continues into November.

Read: The Project 2025 shutdown is here

Farmers, a key constituency for Trump, are among those getting hurt. The Department of Agriculture halted crucial farm aid just as planning for the 2026 planting season was getting under way. Furloughs and mass layoffs, meanwhile, have decimated a small-business-lending program popular in rural communities. Federal subsidies keeping small-town airports afloat are scheduled to run out within days. And despite what Trump might suggest, the majority of the federal employees who are currently going without a paycheck live outside of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Trump-friendly West Virginia, for instance, has among the highest number of government workers per capita in the country. “No matter how these programs are labeled by the administration, the cuts that are happening hurt ever