We’re getting dangerously close to becoming a society that talks about what policies a presidential candidate “might use” a government shutdown as leverage for; a looming threat wielded as a political nuke—deny me and I’ll make these unelected bureaucrats of the lower and middle classes suffer. You can see the beginnings of this new development in the way people dismiss comparisons between Trump’s shutdown and Obama’s. He did it for healthcare!
How hard is it to imagine the talking heads pontificate about this like they were sports commentators comparing athletes?
“Well if you look at Warren’s platform, you know she’d only shutdown the government over [issue].”
“We can’t have a Republican in the White House because they’ll shut us down over [issue]!”
“Now Tom, I actually think Hoffman’s strategy could work if he threatens a shut down over some [key issue] issue in order to tuck away a victory for [lobby-backed issue].”
We all already talk about shutdowns like they’re a foregone conclusion of contemporary American politics.