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Normally, we would not endorse a shutdown of the U.S. government. But nothing about this moment in American history is normal. If a shutdown, or the threat of one, is what brings congressional Republicans to their senses, or at least to the negotiating table, so be it.

Democrats who have pleaded helplessness in the face of one-party control of the government would be irresponsible not to seize the opportunity they finally have to insist on a return to some semblance of constitutional order.

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We do not suggest this lightly. A partial shutdown, which would happen without a spending plan in place by the end of day Friday, would be disruptive to the country, the federal workforce, the already-beleaguered markets and the overall economy.

But the nation is at a crossroads, brought there in just seven weeks by Donald J. Trump’s second term. Under Republican control, Congress has abandoned its constitutional authority and responsibilities as a coequal branch of government, ceding to Mr. Trump the power to remake the U.S. government however he and Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, see fit.

And so the Trump administration has been going through government with the bureaucratic equivalent of a sledgehammer, firing tens of thousands of employees, gutting certain agencies or subsidiary departments to the point of effectively shutting them down, ending programs, revoking or withholding mandated funding, forgoing enforcement of laws and regulations, and removing inspectors general who would normally serve to keep the........

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