If Government’s ‘Essential’ — Why Don’t They Act Like It?

Probably, Possibly because its all just a game to them!

Photo by Maria Thalassinou on Unsplash

SHUT IT DOWN? I’M BEGGING YOU.

Midnight’s coming. The drama is peaking. And Washington’s treating this shutdown like the apocalypse is knocking on their foie gras-lined doors.

Let me save them the suspense:
Shut. It. Down.

No more crying wolf. No more empty threats about furloughs and missed checks. If your job isn’t essential to keeping someone alive, breathing, or protected at the border today?
You should not be getting paid tomorrow.

And I say that with all the love of a taxpayer who’s been mugged by the IRS more times than Joe Biden has fallen up stairs.

Here’s what’s happening:

• Trump’s second-term gang wants to keep spending flat. The “clean” bill is like handing someone a Band-Aid while their leg’s already gone. But at least it doesn’t try to sneak a unicorn into the operating room.

• Democrats want their bonus Obamacare coupons stapled on top. Because what’s a budget negotiation without a little extortion disguised as compassion?

So instead of doing their damn jobs, both sides are sword fighting over who gets to play the hero on cable news.

Meanwhile, guess who pays the price?
Not Congress. Not the Senate.
They still get paid.
They still show up in their $3,000 suits and pretend this whole game isn’t a full-blown performance for the peasants.

And here’s where I’ve just about had it: This whole thing is so stupid it should come with a helmet. We’re standing on the edge of a shutdown cliff because a bunch of overpaid windbags in thousand-dollar suits are more worried about headlines than the damn country. These people don’t give two steaming piles about you, me, or the future. Congress? The Senate? They don’t serve anymore. They rule. And we let them. We let these fossilized career politicians rot in office for thirty, forty, even fifty years while the country crumbles under their watch. They’re drunk on power, addicted to the spotlight, and allergic to accountability. You think Pelosi or McConnell wakes up worrying about a mom trying to buy groceries with a WIC card? Please. They’re too busy making sure their donors are happy and their offshore accounts are healthy. The welfare of the country is a distant afterthought — somewhere below cocktail hour and above pretending to care on Twitter. And somehow, we’re supposed to believe these clowns are qualified to fix the mess they created?

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WHICH FACTION IS PLAYING WHAT GAME — AND WHY TRUMP MIGHT BE THE ONLY ONE ACTUALLY FOLLOWING A PLAYBOOK

1. The Democrats — Holding the Shutdown Hostage Like a Political Ransom Note

Let’s be real. They don’t want a “clean” funding bill. They want a healthcare Hail Mary attached to it. Obamacare subsidies, Medicaid reversal, all wrapped up in a shiny emotional guilt-trip.

This isn’t about protecting poor families. This is about weaponizing pain for votes.

Their play:

• Make the shutdown hurt you, not them.

• Use WIC and healthcare: Paint Republicans as cruel monsters who hate babies and cancer patients.

• These are disruptions to flood the media with sob stories.

Their endgame:
2026 elections. Healthcare is the sympathy magnet. They’re betting people will forget inflation, border chaos, and huge government debt — and vote based on who “cares” more.

2. The Republicans — Split Between the Firebrands and the Feather Dusters

House Republicans passed a clean resolution. They’re basically saying, “Let’s not burn down the house over this, fight about healthcare later.”

But Senate Republicans? Some are getting squishy. Others are lined up behind Trump and Vance like they’re auditioning for season two of The Apprentice: DC Edition.

Their play:

• Be the “reasonable adults” for once (snore).

• Or hitch their wagon to Trump and ride the shutdown chaos to a cabinet seat.

Their endgame:
Stay on the good side of MAGA without looking like anarchists. It’s a tightrope act with a torch in one hand and a gas can in the other.

3. Trump & Vance — Not Playing Chess. Playing Jenga With a Sledgehammer.

Let’s get something straight: Trump isn’t trying to win the shutdown debate. He’s trying to make the debate itself obsolete.

This is bigger than a CR.

He sees this shutdown as a tactic, not a crisis. A tactical nuke for draining the swamp. He’s already floated the idea of permanent federal worker purges — cutting dead weight, scrapping entire departments, and rebuilding the system with loyalists, doers, and people who still know what a damn shovel is.

Their play:

• Use the shutdown as proof that the federal machine is bloated, broken, and useless.

• Let Democrats cry foul while exposing just how little most agencies actually do for real people.

• Put the squeeze on “non-essential” workers until the country says, “Wait, why are we paying these people again?”

Their endgame:
Civil service reset.
The Department of Education? Gone.
Environmental Protection? Overhauled.
CDC? Under new management with less cable airtime and more actual results.

This isn’t a budget fight. This is a hostile takeover.

And if you think Trump’s bluffing, you haven’t been paying attention. He’s setting the stage for mass layoffs, executive orders, and a bureaucratic spring cleaning with the subtlety of a tornado.

SO WHAT NOW?

• If Senate Dems don’t fold, the bill fails.

• If the bill fails, shutdown starts tonight.

• If the shutdown drags out, Trump gets a golden ticket to expose federal fat and swing the wrecking ball.

And guess what?
Every day the lights stay off in DC is a reminder of how little we need the people running them.

Trump knows it. Vance knows it.
And the longer this circus drags on, the more regular Americans might start asking the same dangerous question:

What if less government actually works better?

So buckle up. This isn’t just about keeping the lights on.

It’s about deciding who deserves a switch in the first place.