When I think of brinkmanship, I’m thinking about negotiating tactics that push things until the very last minute to try to secure the most concessions for your side. Right now that means coming to the edge of potential default on the debt.

I was looking back at some of the previous government shutdowns as well as debt ceiling negotiations. In some instances concessions were granted, so brinkmanship paid off. In other instances it was less obvious that there was a win, and in some instances there was perhaps a penalty, when the parties couldn’t agree and there was a government shutdown.

One party may be banking on the fact that the other party’s going to get blamed by the public while their own party reputation won’t be hurt. In the 1990s, it seemed like it was the Republicans who took the brunt of the blame for a government shutdown.

There have been instances in which parties get something out of brinkmanship, as in the government shutdown at the beginning of the Trump administration over funding for the border wall. The Democrats ended up giving some money for the border wall. It wasn’t all of what Trump wanted, but it was part of what Trump and the Republicans wanted.

Brinkmanship and gridlock are disproportionately consequential for Democrats, who generally want to expand government programs, versus for Republicans, who tend to want to constrict government programs. So gridlock or forced spending cuts are easier for Republicans to stomach than Democrats. It may be part of why we see Republicans going harder on this kind of brinkmanship.

On the whole, I think the public doesn’t like it.

My own work has shown that the public does not like gridlock on issues in which people agree on the end goal. The public, on average, even prefers a victory for the other side over policy gridlock.

A win for their own side is the best outcome, a compromise is next best, a win for the other side is next best after that. Gridlock is the worst outcome.

The place where it gets a little bit more challenging is that how people understand and interpret politics is heavily shaped by how politics is framed to them.

Conservative politicians and media spin the debt ceiling very much as fiscal responsibility, saying this is just like a family’s personal budget at home or that it’s really important to not just raise the debt limit without spending concessions.

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