Shutdown Politics We Understand

Days into this government shutdown, we see several lines of enduring enmity and a whole lot of partisanship that guarantee more to come. With so much happening — or not — at once, it is useful to take a breath at the idea that we can’t even agree on what a shutdown means.

At base, the political parties’ collective decision to look past any moment of public responsibility to spend time seeking out blame all to avoid discussion of the central issues is a useful marker for where we find ourselves. The instant polls assign more blame to Republicans than Democrats, but there is plenty of omnidirectional antipathy to go around.

Still, the biggest Trump campaigns to deport migrants, set global tariffs, and deploy military units to U.S. city streets goes on as if there were no shutdown.

If the issues related to maintaining access to health care, particularly for the most vulnerable, are not compelling cause for a re-think, it is hard to see what might be. In sequence, Republicans have cut nearly a trillion dollars for Medicaid and other health-related programs by limiting eligibility as waste, fraud and abuse, they have made cuts that affect Medicare, and the budget they want to continue eliminates government supports for the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare programs.

Together, these will leave millions without health care access and create new administrative costs; Georgia, which passed equivalent state eligibility limits, now spends more to handle the paperwork than it did for the Medicaid payments it intended to limit. Rural hospitals have announced closures, clinics are being shut by other limitations, and insurance costs are headed up for employer-paid programs as well as the public coverage.

The Central Debate

For Sen. John Thune, R-S.Dak., the majority leader, blandly to promise a discussion once Democrats cave, seems fatuous. Senate Republicans have had months for bipartisan legislative efforts that never materialized, and House Republicans spurn bipartisanship altogether unless they need a few votes.

Clearly Donald Trump has the controls, not legislative leaders, and he has made it obvious that legal issues notwithstanding, his team will use the shutdown to roll the Democrats on issues across the board. Trump is threatening mass federal employee dismissals this week and is canceling projects he sees as benefitting Democratic-voting states — as if non-Democrats are not affected as citizens, consumers and commuters.

Team Trump made before  Trump reversed  a huge cut to counter-intelligence policing funds for New York from  Homeland Security. As New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said, it seemed inconceivable that Republicans would order a cut in policing money at the same time they are insisting on deploying troops to cities. The White House claimed it happened without Trump’s knowledge, which seems only to make it worse.

The tumult amounts to actualization of the worst partisanship behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation plans from which Trump insisted he was distancing himself. Indeed, Trump seems to have turned decisions about what constitutes government under shutdown to Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and Project 2025 chief author, as if this is the province of a single, partisan mind.

How mass layoffs rather than furloughs from the Education Department or the EPA or Veterans’ Affairs services helps a government recover from shutdown remains a mystery, despite White House attempts to talk about paying for continuing costs. What a delaying discussion about cutting supports for Obamacare until after commercial insurance rates shoot up in the next month or two hardly seems to brace the questions at hand. Instead, the White House ridicules Democrats over incorrect arguments that health funds would go to undocumented migrants — already unlawful.

Are there off-ramps? Probably, including some separate bill that addresses the Obamacare supports. Is it likely? Each party seems to want the other side to blink.

Trump Agenda Rolls On

What may be worse are the Trump plans that are continuing uninterrupted by shutdown.

The military — officially now working without pay — increasingly became a focus for Team Trump this week. Trump is dealing with backlash from veterans and citizens for telling generals and admirals in a barely coherent speech to prepare for deployment to American city streets, while Defense/War Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly insulted their weight, appearance and diversity.

Then Trump unilaterally declared drug cartels as terrorist enemies to justify using lethal military attacks in international waters and apparently inside Venezuela and perhaps other countries. Constitutionally, it is Congress that must declare war, not Trump. Without such a declaration, killing suspected drug couriers may well be illegal and considered murder.

At 3 a.m in Chicago this week, 300 federal agents in military gear nightmarishly raided — apparently without warrants — a five-story apartment building, breaking doors, rousting all residents and detaining U.S. citizens and at least four children in zip ties as well as 37 migrants whom they said, with no evidence, were members of a Venezuelan gang. The clear point, including posts on social media, is to create intimidation and fear.

And National Guardsmen were being prepared for deployment in Portland, Ore., and in Memphis, along with camo-clad Homeland Security agents — either because of perceived but unevidenced crime increases or to protect ICE agents and facilities, depending on the day of explanation. Even so, published reports said only about 100 Guardsmen may be involved, raising further the question of what that is supposed to accomplish.

Government shutdown notwithstanding, the deportation campaign is continuing at full throttle apparently, although some immigration courts were confused about whether they were supposed to suspend hearing cases. Maybe the biggest lesson of shutdown week was the lack of coordination with a White House that talks control over all things but cannot seem to align actions by its own agencies.

At the Education Department, for example, automated email responses were doctored with messages that said work was being suspended but adding that Democrats were to blame. That’s a violation of the Hatch Act by the same government that is supposed to enforce the rules of separating government from politics.

What we understand, then, from the shutdown is that Politics are supreme, not our health care, our budgets, our services, or the ability to recognize real problems.

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