I squeezed the life out of a mostly-empty can of Fresca Friday night upon reading that the Supreme Court granted the administration a stay in complying with a court order to resume fully funding SNAP food aid payments during the government shutdown. As I headed to the Supreme Court website to read the order, I was fairly certain the decision must be procedural, and it was. The Court granted a stay to enable the appellate court to fully consider whether the administration can be required to pay more than is in the contingency plan while the shutdown continues. This Court has been pretty consistent in permitting the administration to have its way while being sued to behave differently; so perhaps I gave my soda can a premature crushing.

And yet, it’s still a pretty bad look and an even worse reality. People are hungry in the richest country in the world, a state of affairs that has at least one Republican lawmaker pushing back against the claim by Democrats that the GOP is weaponizing hunger. Though state governments in many blue states are taking over the care of those with food insecurity, what about those in red states, where the powers that be may not be as inclined to provide for those in need?

How long will this shutdown go on? In a weekend session, the Senate tried to end it Saturday but failed, and Speaker Mike Johnson won’t even call the House back into session. Democrats are busy rejoicing from an enormous win in this off-year election, everything from double-digit wins of the governors mansions in Virginia and New Jersey, to a host of down ballot races, to having a Democratic Socialist in New York about to take over running the country’s largest city. But even the celebrating has an unseemly look to it while people’s food benefits are in flux with no end in sight.

The problem with the game of chicken is that if no one swerves somebody dies, perhaps both chickens. Democrats can most certainly claim they are fighting the good fight to keep health insurance premiums from costing as much as a housing payment. But as the party that promotes itself as more compassionate than the other side of the aisle – particularly in the era of Trump 2.0 – how much longer can they count on being forgiven by the public, if the administration is successful in not fully funding SNAP?

Donald Trump seems to understand better than most Congressional Republicans just how unpopular GOP lawmakers are, and yet, he’s out there telling states to revoke full SNAP funding, in light of the Supreme Court order, without regard for how it reflects on his party. So what gives?

Whatever else the man may be, he is savvy with press and publicity. Democrats appear to be correct that this Republican president appears to be weaponizing hunger. But as of this writing, at  least eight Senate Dems have decided not to assume he’s taking a bad shot and are joining Republican colleagues in a vote to end the shutdown. If it ends without an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, the Democrats will desperately need for it to be on terms that make the last six weeks of hardship worth it. Otherwise, fantastic off-year Election Day notwithstanding, they will continue to look like they still don’t have the answer to winning a fight in the Trump 2.0 era.