I’m writing this as Washington prepares for a government shutdown, and the great game of Who Will Get the Blame is afoot. For those who closely study such things,
maybe you need to reevaluate your career choicesthis will be a fascinating natural experiment.
Brit Hume is right that, historically, the public always blames Republicans for government shutdowns, and it’s not unreasonable to assume that it’ll happen again. What makes this time interesting, however, is that the pieces on the board have never been arranged this way: The GOP controls all three branches of government, and it’s the Democrats who are flirting with Ted Cruzism. Chuck Schumer is insisting that his preferred policy — legalizing the “Dreamers” — be included in a government-funding deal. Democrats are right when they insist that the polls are on their side on the issue. But polls were kinda on Ted Cruz’s side as well, at least when it came to the unpopularity of Obamacare. It was the shutting-down of the government over the Obamacare that they didn’t support. Maybe the public will make the same distinction here.
That said, there are also other variables at work. As Brother Geraghty notes, because the GOP controls the executive branch, there will probably be less “shutdown theater.” Or at least that’s what the administration is signaling right now.
KILLING THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
It has always infuriated me the way Democrats tried to make shutdowns as painful as possible. It was a shoot-the-hostages strategy, in which they took the handful of things that average Americans like, use, or depend on from the federal government and closed them down first in order to goose public anger. Someone once said it was like shutdowns turned the federal government into a strange insect that has all its vital and vulnerable organs outside its exoskeleton.
Still, I don’t know that this aversion to shutdown theater will last. After all, if the #SchumerShutdown messaging actually gains traction, it could be very tempting to run up the score, as it were. After all, President Trump once thought letting Obamacare come apart at the seams would be good politics.
Which brings us to the shark-hater. As I tried to explain on Special Report last night, I think that on the merits the Democrats will be to blame for a shutdown. But if you’re the sort of normal American who gets a lot of his news from the mainstream media or in drips and drabs from Facebook, I’m not sure the wonky details will overpower the general impression that the president likes chaos and creates it. Trump’s zig-zagging and theatrics over the last couple weeks — the FISA tweets, bill of love, s***hole, “I’ll sign anything you bring me,” the CHIP tweets — have been a gift to Democrats eager to claim a shutdown is all par for the course in a Trump presidency. And the fact that the GOP controls the whole government will make it easier to claim that a “normal” president would be able to avoid a shutdown.
That’s certainly how the polling looks right now.
JUST IN: @ABC News/WaPo poll finds substantially greater Republican risk in a government shutdown, with 48% saying they’d blame Pres. Trump and the GOP, vs. 28% for congressional Democrats. https://t.co/595oItk2mz
— ABC News (@ABC) January 19, 2018
Now, don’t get me wrong: The Democrats are making such asses of themselves that Stormy Daniels might be tempted to hit them with a copy of Forbes.
I hope this blows up right in the face of the Demac-Rats just like one of Wiley Coyotes Roadrunner Traps Ka-Boom and leaves the jackass all scorched and blackened
OMG a shut down get to the grocery stock up dont forget TP, fill up your gas tank get your bugout bag ready, blankets flashlights and tons of batteries. Lots of bottled water, fill up the bathtub, load the gun, break out the plywood to cover windows, put the club on you steering wheel…TIME TO PANIC.
Tuesday, January 9, Trump said he would sign off on a temporary bipartisan DACA deal. Friday, January 12, he shot down the tentative DACA deal hammered out by a bipartisan Senate committee with a Twitter post, calling it “a big step backwards.” And now he’s surprised that the issue has become a sticking point in connection with a continuing resolution to keep the government running.
@Greg: How bipartisan was this deal? I heard 1 old open borders Rino Lindsey, not enough funding for the wall, why havent you bugged out yet My goodness. Feinstein said if the gov shut down people would die, but she might not vote to keep it open. I hope shes one of them croakers then, https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2018/01/19/feinstein-people-will-die-if-government-shuts-down-but-i-might-vote-to-shut-it-down-anyway-
The Demac-Rats are traitors to America and they all need to be removed from Office and that includes the mayors and city councils of all Sanctuary Cities and Moonbeam Brown their putting this nations securty at risk
There is only one reason for this: the media reports it as so.
@Greg:
Why do you insist on leaving out the facts? Trump clearly spelled out (this is why he kept the media in the room throughout the meeting) the minimum of what he wanted; funding for the wall, the border secured, chain migration and the immigration lottery ended and military funding. The idiotic response was nothing less than a slap in Trump’s face and what does Trump do when slapped in the face?
Enjoy YOUR shutdown, Greg.
Donnie Boy should have listened to the words of the Rolling Stones song his campaign used so frequently without their permission and against their wishes: You Can’t Always Get What You Want. He should stick with Ted Nugent and other like-thinking, bullet-headed idiots.
Lots of luck trying to blame it all on the party out of power.
@kitt:
It’s interesting how devotion to Trump gradually changes a person. He’s changing the nation as a whole for the worse.
@Greg: Well, we will see, won’t we? The majority want the border secured and Trump is going to do it.@<a href="#comment-
Even CNN believes the Democrats screwed themselves, and that is a BIG admission.
Mulvaney said in his news conference that the Republicans are not going to weaponize the shutdown like the Democrats did to make it seem far more painful to the citizens than it actually is. Why would they? They have the power to make a government shutdown practically invisible to the average American which will serve to show them what little absolute necessity it serves in their daily lives. The government is supposed to protect the citizens and secure our freedoms, not control every aspect of our lives and dole out portions of our rights as it serves their political purposes. The Democrats just handed the Republicans the opportunity they needed to show people how well they can survive without government overlords.
Your liberals have screwed up royally. Ha.
Do they plan on using their personal credit cards to do this? They don’t even have the power to organize themselves, or keep their man in the White House on track.
@Greg: #8 Its devotion to my country and the democrats saying “people will die” but their devotion to resistance just is strong enough for them to push the imaginary people off the cliff. She knew when she said it that she was lying. The meme they are running from building to building with the words we need a good shut down with Trumps photo on it, or did they blow the budget and get multiple copies. Why havent you bugged out yet? Did you stock up on batteries and toilet paper? We know that the 12 to 17% of government employees that may not go back to work on Monday highly effect your survival.
https://www.ready.gov/videos
@Greg: #10
Couldn’t say for sure. Maybe they can use whatever fund it was that the National Park Service used to install barricades blocking access to open public spaces AFTER their funding was shut down.
I mean, if the Republican’s could do it then, surely they can manage it now.
This is how dishonest the Democrats are: they call this the “Trump shutdown”. Trump has nothing to do with the legislative branch of the government, where the shutdown (or its avoidance) originated. It is clearly simply an attempt to blame Trump for anything bad that happens, especially if those bad things were engineered with the purpose of BLAMING it on Trump.
Meanwhile, the more accurate description, “Schumer Shutdown” more accurately applies because Schumer is a Senator, a member of the chamber where the shutdown occurred and HE is largely responsible for the shutdown, encouraging his members to obstruct anything Trump tries to do.
Schumer spoke before the Senate with a large poster of Trump with “Trump Shutdown” labeled across it on an easel behind him… no objections. But when McConnell was speaking with a poster with Schumer’s picture and “Schumer Shutdown” labeled on it, Democrats objected that this was “demeaning”.
The only thing demeaning is Schumer being in the Senate.
@Bill… Deplorable Me: This is absolutely a Trump shut down, he isnt going to sign just any POS that is put before him, End the “family reunification” better known as chain migration, fund the wall dont just say yes you an have the wall but no money for it, thats the trick they used on Reagan, and the senators advising Trump are keeping him out of political traps. Trump also wants merit based immigration, thats people who can contribute and not be a burden to already stressed welfare rolls.
He and his advisors are doing their best to end policies that tear down rather than build up our country.
Trump can own that idea and wear it like a medal. The GOP should own it and trumpet it from the mountain tops, we will MAGA.
Did we see anything in Dickies bill that dealt with the DACA issue? Its all “No Hope For Change”
@Bill… Deplorable Me: This is absolutely a Trump shut down, he isnt going to sign just any POS that is put before him, End the “family reunification” better known as chain migration, fund the wall dont just say yes you an have the wall but no money for it, thats the trick they used on Reagan, and the senators advising Trump are keeping him out of political traps. Trump also wants merit based immigration, thats people who can contribute and not be a burden to already stressed welfare rolls.
He and his advisors are doing their best to end policies that tear down rather than build up our country.
Trump can own that idea and wear it like a medal. The GOP should own it and trumpet it from the mountain tops, we will MAGA.
Someone tell Greg they will get the money the same place Obama got the illegal ransom money for Iran.