The “Look What You Made Me Do” Phase of the Shutdown

The White House withheld urgently needed infrastructure funding from a state that didn’t vote for him for president. It unilaterally cut energy grants appropriated by Congress because they don’t meet with the president’s views. It fired workers deemed superfluous. It kept in operation what it likes and took out of operation what it doesn’t like.

All of the above happened before the October 1 government shutdown, and the fact of the shutdown doesn’t change the fundamental illegality of these actions (though what is “legal” with a Supreme Court giving their Special Boy Donald Trump whatever he wants is a difficult metaphysical question). We have hit a phase in the shutdown where Trump and his lieutenant Russ Vought are making decisions they’ve always wanted to make and blaming Democrats for forcing them to make them. You can call it the “look what you made me do” phase of the shutdown.

There are cracks in this gambit already. If Trump and Vought were so unconcerned about blame, they wouldn’t have figured out how to keep national parks open with skeleton crews. If they knew the public would blame the Democrats for the shutdown, they would furlough more employees than have been furloughed. Trump and Vought are instead mitigating the public-facing pain, allowing things they like, such as ICE raids and merger approvals, to continue, while canceling funding they don’t like. This was Trump’s prime directive before the shutdown and it’s his prime directive now. It’s unpopular, and this is an attention-grabbing moment for Democrats to call it out.

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