The moment was fast approaching when the federal government apparatus is going to be switched off. Having suffered from plummeting ratings with the last GOP government shutdown, precipitated by backroom manipulations from Ted Cruz in an effort to skirt traditional Congressional leadership to vault his national reputation, the party wanted to get out ahead in the messaging game. The CelebrityPresident led the charge with a tweet blaming the Dems for threatening the military. His GOP henchmen have taken up the chant. Always the clever messenger, linking a shutdown with the military captures fears over American security, which in turn links to racial prejudices (brown and Black people have been superimposed onto the colored Muslim terrorist threat). It all calls for a red, white and blue patriotic response. Can any one seriously imagine that American defenses will be down during a shutdown. Of the many things that will be hurt by a government shutdown, the military is not one. Military operations will be unaffected, personnel will continue to be paid; any assertion otherwise is ludicrous. Mick Mulvaney lied, as he often does, from his news podium, saying the military will keep working but will not get paid. In fact, Congress passed a bill that would continue paying military personnel during a government shutdown. NSA, the FBI, the CIA and Homeland with its border guards will not skip a beat. But the idea plugs into national anxieties more effectively than trying to elicit sympathy for government workers who will not get paid or Social Security recipients who will have their checks delayed. That would call for empathy which is sorely lacking in the Republican base. For the many Americans who live check to check, even a short interruption can have significant consequences, although they will get paid when the government reopens unless agencies will consider the period a furlough or leave. Such a development is not farfetched in an administration that has staked its reputation on hating government workers and is always looking to save a buck. Mulvaney refused to answer a question about that when asked directly during his news conference, strongly suggesting this option is being pursued but they don’t want the message to get out ahead of the game, particularly if a shutdown was avoided.
The GOP did not use the military argument in 2013 and it is hoping that this will score more points than those advanced before. The lack of government services, the IRS struggling to generate withholding tables for employers at 50% manpower is one that will suffer. There will be no one to answer questions from either citizens or state agencies. One of the huge complaints last time came from National Park visitors who had planned vacations only to find the parks shut. This time Zinke, head of Interior has been working on a plan to keep the parks open with minimal staffing. Who says Republicans can’t learn from their mistakes.
One congressional spokesman really had his groove going in an NPR interview. His argument went like this, the American people elected us to create a solution to our open borders and we should not be held hostage by a bunch of Democrats who don’t care about our military defense. Let’s parse that message a bit.
“The American people” is a bit of an overreach; it sounds good but it’s not true. First, only 58% of eligible voters voted in the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton won 300 million votes, making here the clear popular vote winner. It is only through the intervention of the electoral college that Trump now occupies the White House. The Republicans in the Senate hold a 51 seat majority, even though 45 million Americans voted for a Democratic candidate while 39.3 million voted for Republicans, almost 6 million less. On the other hand, Republicans did garner the most votes for House of Representatives candidates, in precisely gerrymandered Congressional districts, retaining a 238 to 193 majority. Much of the press around Congress has focused on Republican control of all three branches of government, giving the impression that Republicans are an overwhelming majority, rather than hanging on to slim margins. This is hardly the overwhelming mandate from the American people that the Congressman likes to pretend they have.
One could argue that the American people wanted some solutions to the thorny problems facing the country but had no idea that they would be the ones proposed by this niggardly bunch of politicians; how could we because they sure didn’t tell us during the campaign. The proof of the pudding is the unpopularity of all the major GOP only bills; one, repeal of the ACA failed twice and the other, the tax cut, remains wildly unpopular. GOP legislators are operating out in a galaxy all their own, having left behind representation of their constituents in exchange for a big money donor based mission. Some Senators candidly admitted it when the pressure was on to pass the tax cut, the donors’ number one priority. The donors had insisted that they would stop contributing to their campaigns. And Republicans fell in lock step one by one, much like the North Korean military on parade.
And then there is the one year interval when Republicans have governed. Elected representatives are supposed to get feedback from their constituents and be responsive to their concerns. Over the year, Americans have demonstrated that they like Obamacare, they support the Dreamers, that abortion should remain legal and available. This should in turn, shape the representatives legislative efforts. Republicans congressmen seem to have forgotten as well that they represent ALL the constituents in their districts, not just the ones who voted for them. believe that in response
So when this Trump surrogate tells us he’s delivering what we asked for, he’s simply indulging in party fantasies. No the military won’t be affected so the country will be as safe as 45’s shenanigans allow. Every Democratic Senator is as comfortable as doubt will permit. And Trump’s congressional toadie omitted some other important issues in the debate, like DACA, CHIP and the stupid ass Border Wall, not to mention a comprehensive immigration policy. In any case, the government came to the brink of shut down because 45 torpedoed every chance at a compromise for bipartisan action that had been proposed, vacillating in his now familiar off-the-top-of-my-head-style. If the party in power is running government, it’s on them to make sure it hums along unobstructed rather than blame the opposition party for refusing to knuckle under a heavy Republican boot. The Democrats have not opted out of participation in the process, as Republicans like to say, while in truth they’ve been shut out of discussions of previous legislative efforts. This time when the passing vote must be 60 rather than a 52 vote majority, concocted through GOP Senate leadership maneuvering for previous bills, they believe they can make it happen with a sledge hammer.
As negotiations intensified on the last day to vote, a kick-the-can-down-the-road delay of 2 days to 2 weeks was being haggled over. 45 delayed his usual weekend to golf and rub shoulders with his adulants in Mar-a-lago to jump into the fray. Often ignorant of the details and hampered by his desire to be loved, this could be positive or negative, depending on how many guffaws trip him up and which staff are whispering in his ear. In a lunch with Chuck Schumer, the two seemed to have hammered out a compromise but General Kelly, a hardliner on immigration went to work after he left the meeting with Trump, to walk back the agreement. When will people understand that Trump is not a man of his word or honest about what he thinks. So no surprise, the compromise evaporated through the afternoon.
Democrats have built their messaging around the importance of solving problems, like CHIP and DACA which Republicans have ignored in a rush to pursue their tax cut to redistribute even more wealth upward, while real solutions have languished, despite efforts within the House and Senate to generate bipartisan legislation. There are two bipartisan DACA bills that could be considered, although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell flatly refused to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. Democrats contend that the time to settle these issues is at hand, and a short timeline will hold GOP feet to the fire to compromise. To let more time pass is to let Republicans ignore the issues while they move on to their next great initiative until right before the deadline, hoping that a deadline will enhance their political clout. There’s no question that a short timeline enhances the Democrats bargaining position.
Tick tock, the clock was running down, each side gambling that a government shutdown can be blamed on the other, bringing some form of political advantage in 2018. The lessons from previous shutdowns show that the issue doesn’t seem to enter into voter choices in the voting booth. Probably come November, it will be long forgotten in the whirlwind that is Trump Media Productions.
Boom! Time ran out! The government is closed to business.
oleblacklady 