Government Shutdown? How About a Government Shutup!

Image: NPCA Photos via Flickr

“Who should we blame for the Government Shutdown?” —Political Pete

Blame the Founding Fathers. I know they were supposed to be revered, infallible geniuses. But they really left us with a lot of bags of burning crap to hold. Slavery being the main and most terrible one. Yes, truly, all men were created equal, Jefferson, except the ones you owned! You creep! Can you imagine the #MeToo Moment they could have had back then? “Anyone here been whipped by George Washington? [Everyone’s hands go up.] Oh, you, too?” They should have been much more specific about the 2nd Amendment referencing guns that took a half an hour to reload and were unreliable past 50 feet. I guess that didn’t sound aspirational enough. If they could have predicted AR-15 rifles, don’t you think they would have kept them all for themselves and not allowed any yahoo to walk into a gun show and walk out with one?

And why didn’t they give women the right to vote? Imagine if women had voted in the first 30 or so Presidential elections? Maybe we would have had some actually good Presidents instead of Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jackson, Millard Fillmore and Kevin Spacey. We didn’t know when we were watching American Beauty that that dude was getting exactly what he deserved. If women had help draft the Constitution we’d probably have Health Care for everyone by now, Social Security forever, and a much better National Anthem than “The Star Spangled Banner.” There would still be insane high notes, but there would be a much more danceable beat, too.

I’m sorry for all the government people furloughed today. And for all the Starbucks employees that usually stay busy keeping them caffeinated. But you’ve decided to suck the Federal teat and you have to, sooner or later, expect a mouthful of gross nonsense every once in a while. There’s no way that the Constitution was ever made to hold together a country as vast and weird as this. The problems of people in Rhode Island are not the same as those in Wyoming. They both get two Senators, though. In Wyoming’s case, they probably wear bolo ties to work. In Wyoming they probably let wolves vote. The population of both places is less than the population of Queens. By a lot. And yet they have 2 Senators apiece, in bolo ties, because they are way over there, where someone once drew a boundary between one thing and another based on strategically placed buffalo poos no one should have ever cared about.

But our two-party system is ridiculous. Only slightly less ridiculous than other countries’ multiparty system in which, somehow, the Republican types always win because they make some Green Party person the minister of loneliness. You’re better off lonely, Britons! Worse than loneliness is the state of your cuisine! It’s harder to feel lonely when you’re as fat as Americans. Our country has only been around for like 200 years and we’ve already invented fried chicken! You guys should be ashamed of yourselves! I rarely ever feel alone, because I weigh what two normal humans would weigh. Wasn’t Bridget Jones happier when she was single and squinty and unattached? Do you guys even have tacos over there? I could look it up, but I might get a close-up photo of British teeth. Ahh.

In terms of this shutdown, I haven’t seen anyone who is too upset yet. It might be nice to have a few weeks off from the contrived dramas of The District. Brinksmanship only works if you’re convinced the other side isn’t willing to drive off a cliff. We’re at the bottom of the cliff. What could be worse? We’re really more concerned with which party will be blamed for the shutdown than concerned about the shutdown. And I’m not blame-oriented. We generally blame the wrong people for the biggest problems. Was Judas really at fault for turning in Jesus to the Romans? No. I’d turn both my brothers over to the Romans for far less than 40 pieces of silver. I just love silver so much. It is so shiny!

But, really, don’t let their drama be your drama. Republicans don’t think we remember what happened yesterday. And Democrats will eventually give them whatever they want. They continue to play nice and by the rules. Meanwhile the Republicans are stealing their Supreme Court nominees. And their lunch money. Just because they can. The Trump Administration is a joke they are playing on Democrats, just to make them nuts. They’ll fill diners and op-ed pages with poorly-reasoned nonsense about how Trump means something. But he doesn’t. He just means Not-Hillary. They’ve decided to eat cake frosting three meals a day and wash it down with Drano. There are no rules. Except one: the more you hate Trump, the more they will love and forgive him. They elected the Substitute teacher the king of the world. There are no rules. Be as racist as you want! And the more normal people hate it, the better.

So maybe the President won’t be able to go to Davos. He’ll probably give a standard teleprompter speech for the State of the Union, and if he doesn’t throw up on himself his people will love it. He will then declare war with Antarctica and nuke all the penguins. I’ve read Fire and Fury and I watch MSNBC. Always expect the worst. My blood pressure is generally through the roof. But don’t let them get you down. That’s what they want! I was right about the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars all those years ago and you would have thought it would have made me feel pretty good to have told all those morons, “I told you so!” But “I told you so” doesn’t ever feel good at all. You know what feels good? Being in power and rubbing it in the face of your opponents. That is really the only thing that feels good. And tacos.

Jim Behrle lives in Jersey City, NJ.