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The U.S. government is on the brink of a shutdown, and the deadline for Congress to pass a new spending bill is September 30. I spoke with Russell Berman, who covers politics for The Atlantic, about what led to this moment—and how the power to avoid a shutdown lies with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

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A Weak Hand

Lora Kelley: How did we get to a point where the government is on the verge of shutting down?

Russell Berman: Every year, Congress has to figure out how to appropriate funding for the government starting on October 1. So September 30, the end of the fiscal year, is almost always the deadline for a shutdown.

Right now, the Republicans have a very thin majority in the House. To keep the government open, McCarthy would have to strike a deal with Democrats. But he is facing demands from the hard-liners in his caucus to pass a bill with only Republican votes. If he cuts a deal with Democrats, there are more than enough Republicans who, if they want to, could remove him as speaker.

McCarthy has been unable to get the 218 Republican votes required to pass basically anything. Last week, he tried to pass a 30-day extension of federal funding to keep the government open for an additional month. And he couldn’t even pass that bill. The fact that the Republicans can’t pass a bill with members of their own party makes McCarthy’s hand even weaker with these negotiations.

Lora: How likely is a shutdown looking?

Russell: At this point, it looks very likely. It’s not a fait accompli. But I talked to one Democratic representative who said there was a 90 percent chance the government would shut down. You will hear the same thing from Republicans. One of the things that makes it very likely is that a number of Republicans are openly rooting for a shutdown. They want to make a point about the level of spending, the administration’s border policies, and the way that Kevin McCarthy has been running the House.

Lora: What would it take for the government to stay open?

Russell: It’s conceivably very easy. All Kevin McCarthy has to do is talk with the Democrats. The Democrats are willing to keep the government open, at least for a few weeks to buy time for negotiations, and they would probably agree to just continuing government funding as it’s been.

Another way that this could end is through the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is going to try to pass a short-term bill and send it to the House. Then it will be up to McCarthy. He’ll have a choice: If he brings up this bill, it probably would pass with mostly Democratic votes. Though, again, he would be threatening his speakership. Really, Kevin McCarthy will decide whether the government shuts down.

Lora: What actually happens when the government shuts down? What happens to government workers, and how would it affect other Americans?

Russell: Employees deemed essential—for example, people who guard nuclear weapons, guard the president, and do the jobs needed to protect national security, among many others—will keep working. The hundreds of thousands of federal workers deemed nonessential will be furloughed. They will not be getting paid until Congress reopens the government.

If it’s a shutdown of only a few weeks, the macroeconomic effects are usually pretty small, but people who don’t work for the government may be affected too: Federal parks and museums would close. If, for example, you were planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park, or the Smithsonian museums in Washington, hopefully your travel is refundable.

Lora: In our era of polarized politics and infighting within political parties, should Americans expect that shutdowns will become par for the course?

Russell: Unfortunately, they are already normalized. If the government shuts down, this will be the third presidential administration in a row in which we’ve had a government shutdown. Before that, there had been well over 15 years without one. Sometimes, we’ve had two or three years where they’ve been able to agree to these funding bills without too much drama. But now, there’s a cycle that seems to happen whenever there is a new dynamic in Washington, most commonly when Republicans take control from Democrats in the House.

Lora: How might a government shutdown affect how voters view President Joe Biden heading into the election?

Russell: A government shutdown can reflect poorly on everybody. That includes the president, even though in this case, it’s really not Biden’s fault at all. The problem for Biden is that most voters don’t pay close attention to the infighting that happens on Capitol Hill.

The broader issue for Biden is that he has tried to present himself as a stable president, in contrast to his predecessor. And so anything that represents political instability undercuts that, and could make it look as if he has not delivered on that promise.

Related:

Why Republicans can’t keep the government open Kevin McCarthy is a hostage.

Today’s News

The Writers Guild of America reached a tentative agreement with entertainment companies last night, effectively ending a 146-day strike by screenwriters. In his first public comments since being indicted on bribery charges, New Jersey’s Democratic Senator Bob Menendez resisted calls for his resignation and vowed to fight the charges. The Philippines has removed a “floating barrier” placed by China in the South China Sea, defying Beijing’s claim of the disputed area.

Evening Read

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

Abraham Lincoln Wasn’t Too Good for Politics

By Steve Inskeep

Abraham Lincoln was a politician, though people like to describe him in ways that sound more noble. Contemporaries considered him a Christlike figure who suffered and died so that his nation might live. Tolstoy called him “a saint of humanity.” Lincoln himself said he was only the “accidental instrument” of a “great cause”—but he preserved the country and took part in a social revolution because he engaged in politics. He did the work that others found dirty or beneath them.

He always considered slavery wrong, but felt that immediate abolition was beyond the federal government’s constitutional power and against the wishes of too many voters. So he tried to contain slavery, with no idea how it would end, and moved forward only when political circumstances changed. “I shall adopt new views so fast as they appear to be true views,” he said shortly before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.

At each step, he tried to build coalitions with people who disagreed with him … Some of us have lost patience with that skill—or even hold it in contempt—because we misunderstand it.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

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Culture Break

Illustration by Tarini Sharma. Source: DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI / De Agostini / Getty.

Read. “More Schubert,” a new poem by Carl Dennis:

“I’ve passed the house of Mrs. Revere / Often enough when her windows were open / To know she’d rather listen to Schubert / Most evenings than watch whatever the networks / Are beaming”

Watch. Dumb Money (in theaters) captures the internet fanaticism of the GameStop-stock rush in the form of a period film from … 2021?

Play our daily crossword.

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

By Beijing’s reckoning, the U.S.-led global order is in turmoil, and a Washington in decline has no answers to the world’s mounting problems. Fortunately for the future of humanity, however, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping does. He would like to replace Washington’s “rules-based” world order with a framework of his own—one whose most sacred principle is national sovereignty, or the right of states to govern themselves, free from outside interference.

In the world Xi envisions, nations will no longer have to endure Washington’s preaching about democracy and human rights. All governments, no matter how repressive, will be equals, with their sovereignty assured. Xi enshrined the protection of sovereignty as the very first plank of his Global Security Initiative, an ideological blueprint for a new global system that he introduced, probably not coincidentally, several weeks after the start of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

That war has posed a bit of a problem for China’s professed position, however. Russia, China’s strategic partner, trammeled an international border to invade a neighboring country in what could hardly be a clearer violation of that country’s sovereignty. But rather than sympathize with Ukraine’s desperate struggle to preserve its independent existence, Xi cemented his partnership with the Russian invaders intent on annihilating it.

“You can’t be helping Russia conduct this war and say you believe in Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told me. “Obviously, you can’t square that circle.”

Yet Xi has tried to do so. His contradictory stance on the war has forced his diplomats to tap dance, seeking to preserve Beijing’s pretense of principled neutrality even to the point of staging a purported peace mission. Meanwhile, the war has raised serious questions about the place of sovereignty in Xi’s vision for a new world order, and, relatedly, about his ability to achieve his grandiose plans.

In practically every diplomatic statement, Communist China affirms its commitment to honoring the sovereignty of other countries. It expects no less in return: Sovereignty, China’s leaders claim, confers upon the Communist Party the authority to govern as it wishes within China’s borders. Sovereignty, from the Chinese viewpoint, gives Beijing the right to lock up Uyghurs in Xinjiang and democracy advocates in Hong Kong, and it forbids Washington from interfering in China’s internal affairs by complaining about its human-rights record. Beijing rejects the notion of  “universal values” that apply to all people, no matter where they live.

[Read: Xi Jinping is done with the established world order]

Beijing’s fixation on sovereignty is inseparable from its claim that Taiwan is part of China: By so much as interacting with Taiwan’s government, other countries are violating China’s sovereignty, Beijing maintains. Because they believe the country is not yet completely unified, says Maria Adele Carrai, an international-law expert at NYU’s Shanghai campus, Chinese leaders “feel very sensitive and also partly fragile about their sovereignty.”

Xi’s position on sovereignty holds obvious appeal for other autocrats intent on suppressing dissent without interference. But it also attracts adherents in the developing world, where many leaders still contend with the persistent, detrimental legacy of Western colonialism. For those leaders, says Jonathan Fulton, a specialist in Chinese relations with the Middle East at Zayed University, in Abu Dhabi, “when they hear a great power say, ‘We’re not going to do the kind of stuff that the West did to you,’ that resonates.”

The deeper Xi wades into international affairs, however, the more his purported principles come into conflict with his strategic goals. His government routinely intrudes on other countries’ sovereignty; witness the Chinese spy balloon caught floating in American airspace, or the scandal over alleged Chinese interference in Canada’s national elections. But little has challenged Xi’s ideological framework more than the Ukraine war. His choice was stark: Stand with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Xi has called his “best” friend, and sacrifice his supposed commitment to sovereignty, or stand for sovereignty by siding with Ukraine, thereby breaking a partnership that he perceives as crucial to his campaign against U.S. hegemony.

At the war’s outbreak, Chinese leaders seemed ambivalent, even conflicted. Though Foreign Minister Wang Yi asserted that Putin’s security concerns were “legitimate,” he also came out clearly in defense of Ukraine’s sovereignty. “All countries’ sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity must be safeguarded,” he told the Munich Security Conference only days before the invasion began. “This is also what China has been upholding, with no exception regarding Ukraine.”

As the war has ground on, Xi has strengthened his relations with Russia. He has done so without directly aiding Moscow’s war effort but by supplying political and economic support as Russia has become isolated from the West. Chinese diplomats still sometimes talk about sovereignty, but they do so with greater ambiguity. In a March press briefing, then–Foreign Minister Qin Gang reiterated Beijing’s position that all countries’ sovereignty should be respected but brought up Ukraine’s specifically only to criticize Washington: “Why does the U.S. talk at length about respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity on Ukraine, while disrespecting China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on China’s Taiwan question?” he asked rhetorically.

[Read: What is Putin worth to China?]

Last February, Xi issued a 12-point proposal for ending the Ukraine conflict. The first entry asserts that “the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld”—but it does not mention Ukraine in this regard. In an April conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Xi stressed—apparently without irony—that “mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity is the political foundation” of relations between the two countries, but he did not pledge to ensure Ukraine’s or offer any specific proposal for preserving it, at least according to the official Chinese summary of their talk.

For the Ukrainians, the principle of sovereignty affords no ambiguity. Zelensky told Xi in April 2023, “We did not start this war, but we have to restore the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country.” He added that “there can be no peace at the expense of territorial compromises. The territorial integrity of Ukraine must be restored.”

If Zelensky’s words made Xi uncomfortable, the Chinese leader did not let on. Just days earlier, the Chinese diplomat Lu Shaye had let slip a remark that opened a window on Beijing’s thinking. Then serving as China’s ambassador to France, Lu claimed that the sovereignty of the countries formed from the ruins of the Soviet Union—such as Ukraine—had no basis in international law, because no international agreement had specified their status. They had asserted their own sovereignty, and Lu’s comments suggested that he did not recognize such a path to independent statehood. His words sparked outrage across Europe. China’s foreign ministry clarified that the government officially recognized the sovereignty of those states—but Chinese diplomats rarely stray far from approved talking points. More likely than not, Lu’s ideas carry some currency among the Chinese leadership.

Chinese leaders could possibly see Moscow’s assertion of control over territory once included in the Soviet Union as parallel to its own yearning after lands, including Taiwan, that were once ruled from Beijing under the Qing dynasty. In both cases, earlier political entities claimed these territories, suggesting that sovereignty can be a slippery idea when aggressive or nationalist leaders wish it to be.

Will the incipient allies attracted to Xi’s sovereignty rhetoric be put off by China’s lack of regard for Ukraine? Herbst believes that the leadership’s contradictory stance “certainly makes it harder for them to present themselves as some new sort of power representing something even better than the Western-organized international system.” But he did not think the inconsistency would cost China much in the global South.

Many developing countries lie far removed from Ukraine’s crisis and are not much invested in it. And according to Fulton, the countries of the global South are less interested in Xi’s transgressions of avowed principles than in its promise of counterbalance: Many leaders “want to see a shift in the distribution of power so the West doesn’t get to behave the way it has in the past and the global South has more influence,” he told me.

In that sense, Xi may be onto something. The United States has set aside its commitment to democracy to promote its strategic interests on any number of occasions, but its ideals have still given common cause to a worldwide network of alliances and inspired many of those suffering under oppressive regimes to dream of greater liberty—including within China. Perhaps Xi’s ideological blueprint, no matter how unworkable or compromised, could play the same role: that of a glue binding partnerships opposed to American ideals and American power. Perhaps in global diplomacy, what leaders say can matter more than what they do.

Beijing says its coastguard took necessary measures in accordance with law to drive away a Philippine vessel.