I hope all you non-Trumpites will forgive me for this, but I think it’s a pretty good idea to shut things down every once in awhile, including the government.
Half-time is a shutdown in most sporting events that gives the players time to re-energize (maybe a mistake for the Eagles last week, but they had gotten a freebie the week before, so all’s fair in football – except Belichik).
Coffee breaks are good shutdowns. You know why we have coffee breaks? Because of England. Really. English bosses encouraged laborers to drink tea because something in it gave them a boost of energy, which translated into more profits. It turned out to be caffeine. They sold tea in coffee houses (yes, coffee houses) in the 1600’s. Then it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to the Colonies who Americanized tea with Starbucks coffee and voila! the coffee break.
Or something like that.
For Trump to shut down part of the government is, I think, a nice thing for the IRS, TSA, HUD, the Coast Guard, NASA and others. They get a little vacation… sort of. Of course, they have to use that vacation to drive Uber and Lyft cars so they can eat, but hey, they get to see their neighborhoods from a new and different perspective.
Over 800,000 people are getting those vacations, right? Not to mention the secondary and tertiary effects from all them spending less money. So Republicans are happier because it slows down government spending. And that’s a good thing, right?
And! It’s also good for food banks and charities that were feeling a slow down after the Christmas rush. Most of us only give to food banks at Christmas because the poor aren’t as hungry in the winter, right? Now we can give in January, too.
Sometimes shutdowns have nothing to do with politicians. Sears and K-Mart are in bankrupcty. Unfortunately it’s not temporary. I guess that’s what they get for not keeping up with the Amazon. A lot of their workers will get long vacations, which can be nice. Maybe they can have long coffee breaks with government workers.
Or maybe they can work in Amazon warehouses. I hear that’s a lot of fun.
Politicians are always trying to shut down each other nowadays. The 2016 election was a real shutdown of Democrats; Republicans took over the entire government. In 2018, Democrats took over the House. Recently national voting has been like a pendulum with a pooper scooper at the end: it scoops out one party and scoops in another.
Which led to the Trump shutdown. Democrats want to shut down Trump’s wall and Trump wants to build it.
The problem with democracy is all those votes. Whether they happen in the Senate, House, or voting booths, someone’s always voting the wrong way. This frustrates Trump, because as a businessman, people had to do what he said or be fired. He was a dictator. Now Congress does what he says only if they want to. A very pesky difference between business and politics.
Sometimes people get shutdown in business or personal lives. Getting fired is hard. Kind bosses can do it gently and often steer the employee to a different opportunity, particularly if the shut down is not the employee’s fault. I once was rehired by a boss who had fired me years before. I worked for him for five more years and got raises. Breaking up a relationship is similar. When the breakor doesn’t burn the breakee, bridges stay intact. When the breakor is mean and callous, not so likely.
When nature shuts down life, it can be hard. Our French poodle, Philo, died a couple of years ago. The whole family still misses him. But the good thing about nature is it takes and then it gives. Two years later, we just got a new poodle, a rescue. He doesn’t speak French, but he gives me that haughty look when I tell him to sit.
Life is more powerful and longer ranged than you or me or Trump or the Democrats. The shutdown will be shutdown soon, the crazy incompetents in Congress and the White House will be replaced, and life will get back to normal.
I give it about two years.