President Trump not only continues to hold his own government hostage over budget to wall
off the southwestern border, but now promises to sustain the shutdown for months or even
years until he gets what he wants.
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He's even talking about declaring a national emergency to get it built.
The same wall he told everybody Mexico would pay for is the reason close to
a million federal civilians haven't worked in over two weeks.
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My Conclusion
This is a hostage crisis. 800,000 federal workers are furloughed or working without pay,
going by the number in today's The Washington Post reporting — which is about 40
percent of the total Federal civilian workforce.4
How many of those 800,000 are
just going to "tough it out" if this shutdown really does go for months? Probably
not 800,000 of them. This kind of paralysis is the makings of an actual
national emergency.
With our executive branch spiraling into oblivion and taking almost half of the federal
workforce with him, it is up to our Congress to get this country back on track properly. The
Democrats are leading the fight from the House of Representatives,
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resolve of the smart Republicans in the Senate will continue to erode to the point
that when it's all over and the next election cycle is reached, the American people will
witness the utter destruction of the Republican Party. It's simple math: 40% of the federal
workforce will not forget who fought to get them working again, and who failed their newly
unemployed constituents. And the rest of us watched it all happen.
Here's the thing, though: we'll be lucky if that's all that happens.
With so many Federal employees on furlough, what do you think our national security posture
is right now? Yes, we still have the DOD, but the other intelligence services of the United
States of America are brushing up their resumes and being advised by the OPM to trade labor for rent payments.
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Homeland Security, Treasury, Justice, State departments are all affected. (By the way,
the shutdown is probably not a diversion from the Mueller Investigation; the FBI is
excepted from furlough.8)
This shutdown is headed toward becoming an actual threat to our national security,
whether in the physical or electronic security dimension through the diminished capacities
of federal agencies, or in the economic dimension as a function of market reaction.
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If we arrive at that point where something actually bad happens as a result of this
stupid shutdown, how much is a fucking wall going to matter?