As financially comfortable politicians resurrect the “government shut down” theater, using the lives of government workers as fodder for their political maneuvering, they have encountered a devastating hiccup. Donald Trump is not sticking to the status quo script. Rather than pretend to resist for a few days to create the illusion of government working for the people, then suddenly finding a comprise before the system is shut down long enough to do actual damage, Trump has gone rogue.
Power Dynamics
This small dissenting action by Trump has completely flipped the power dynamic. Now, Congress cannot turn around and brag to voters about how they narrowly saved the people through bipartisanship “compromise.” They cannot point to a quickly reopened government in their next campaign and claim to be the ones best suited to keep this shit show of a nation going. And in the end, they will not be able to say they stopped Trump from building his wall with taxpayer dollars. Instead, they must desperately cobble together a bill that Trump WILL sign, before the people feel the bite too deeply and decide that maybe a Yellow Vests movement will yield better results.
Trump has seized all the power in a dynamic that was manufactured by Congress. He can effectively hold Congress captive until they yield to his demands, including funding the wall. He knows that if Congress does not yield to his demands soon the electorate will tear them to pieces and if they do yield to his demands then they will be attacked over the debacle in the next campaign season. Congress, Democrats especially, have placed themselves in a no-win situation of their own making and delivered a distinct political win to Trump. #Resistance my ass.
And, make no mistake, these relics of another age that hold power are too removed from the reality of regular people to even know that Trump will be made more popular by leveraging his power this way. If the Republicans in Congress are smart, they will shift away from bipartisanship compromise and ride Trump’s coat tails through this power play. If they don’t, they risk ending up as despised as the Democrats when all is said and done.
Unlike previous episodes of “shut down” theater, the person keeping the government shut down will not pay the price. It will be the Democrats who crafted the opportunity for Trump to leverage his power, then had to yield to his every demand, that will pay the piper. And harping on Trump’s self-proclaimed responsibility for the closure will not help Democrats in future elections as they assume. Trump’s base wants that damn wall. They see Trump belligerently taking on the apparatus to deliver on his promise…and they love him for it. Likewise, a large contingent of the left see’s the Democrats political incompetence for what it is, and will not excuse them for a self-inflicted wound.
Trump’s maneuvering does not come from an altruistic streak, he didn’t take this action to help the common man. His disruptive action is incentivized by self-interest. He has his own campaign to think of, and unfulfilled campaign promises will be a lead weight around his neck in 2020. On top of that, he excites his base by using democrats own actions against them.
Both sides of the aisle are responsible for carrying on this reoccurring faux shutdown strategy. They all work for the same donor class and are simply playing oppositional rolls, like actors, to create the illusion of democracy and thereby manufacture the consent of the governed.
These craven actors have been playing us all for fools. They have used government shutdowns to fear monger and leverage the citizenry for decades. While generally, this theater is just a threat, their strategy has backfired this time. And now Trump is making the threat real by cutting off access to funds for workers and the poor, who are forced to live in a capitalist hellscape where money IS life.
Government Requires Our Consent
Regular people are being sacrificed to facilitate power grabs among the rich and their political puppets, yet again. The powerful battle among themselves, but we are the ones that bleed for their cause. I am so damn sick of it. This governing apparatus is perverted, and their theater is a brutal reality for the most vulnerable among us. A civil authority which creates such unnecessary suffering is immoral and should be torn asunder.
As the political class attempts to use us as pawns in their power games again, I want us, the people, to go off script. Let us collectively carve out the space to leverage our own power. Their governance is dependent upon our consent, so we must remind them that we can withdraw that consent at any time. If these “politicians” want to play government shut down, well then maybe it’s time for every government worker in this country to show them what a mother fucking shut down really looks like.
If no one shows up to work at any government job, then the entire hulking machine will come to a screeching halt. No more paychecks for rich representatives. No more backrooms for the lobbyist to bribe our politicians. No more stock market. No more DMV. No more road tolls. No more enforcement. No more of everything that we the people do every single day to make these bastards power games and political theater possible. Maybe, it’s time the American people remembered how to say NO.
If we hope to be successful, we must all know in our bones that the labor of the poor, working, and the middle class is what keeps the gears of society moving. We must unite around that commonality. Without all of us, there is no “government,” and without our consent, these psychopath’s in office have zero authority or power over us. Our unity is the source of more untapped power in this political dynamic than the elite class could ever muster. We need only see past our petty differences and recognize our common humanity in order to seize it. Click To Tweet
So, let us use take that power and use it to force the people who allegedly work for us, to do their damn jobs. And if they cannot, then we use that power to get them the fuck out of our way, so we can tear down this disgusting system and build something new and better in its place.
As the yellow vest movement in France proves, the application of people power can and will overrule the illusionary authority of government. When the People question the nature of authority, the truth of their own rights and inherent power is always revealed.
If we have the courage, we can seize this opportunity and use it to remind out of touch, squabbling politicians and their oligarch owners that they are not the only players on the field. We can flip the balance of power in our favor just as easily as Trump did. We simply have to go off script, then leverage our power until our demands are met. Change is infinitely possible, we need only believe that it is, then go out and fight for it till we get it. #yellowvests American Yellow Vests
“Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.” ―
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Bree Hood
Latest posts by Bree Hood (see all)
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