Dear sitting members of Congress,
We the People are tired of the theatrics, the kayfabe, the bull manure which, at best, resemble a sort of mash-up between prime Jerry Springer and an episode of WWE Monday Night Raw.
Twenty-one days we are, as of this writing, into a government shutdown, and all the public seems to get from Speaker of the House (and Stephen Colbert stunt double) Mike Johnson, on down, is gaslighting – pointing the finger of blame.
I agree, to a point, with the widely circulated old musing from President Trump about a shutdown being the president’s fault, however, above all, it’s career politicians who feel ensconced in their roles who are ultimately to blame.
When the government shuts down, it’s never the legislators who suffer, but the people; the families missing paychecks, the small businesses losing out on federal contracts and the public, who see essential services grind to a halt. All because 535 people whom We the People elected to represent us in Washington, D.C., cannot fathom negotiation. Headlines, like the one the AP reported the other day about a projected 40 million Americans losing food assistance if this nonsense continues, are inexcusable, yet We the People continue to pay your salaries.
It appears to me that no one in Congress legitimately cares about the ramifications of the government shutdown upon the American people, as long as the chance to exercise political theater and score partisan points is existent. Heaven forbid, any of them actually govern responsibly, for that would be too boring.
Plain and simple, if our representatives in the House and Senate cannot find the will to negotiate, compromise and end a governmental shutdown, then they do not deserve to remain in office. Every incumbent who refuses to put the nation’s wellbeing above party loyalty needs to be voted out.
This shutdown nonsense is not the show of strength or conviction that any Democrat or Republican hardliners think it is; it is a symptom of utter failure, a failure of these elected officials to do their most basic duty, which is to keep the federal government functioning for the people who pay for it – you and me.
Now I’ll admit I need to brush up on my Constitution and the finer points of our foundational document, but I don’t recall it granting Congress the right to hold the nation hostage to prove ideological points. If anything, it demands that they work together to ensure that our republic continues to function, and whenever they refuse to do this, it shows a grave disrespect for We the People.
In the words of the late, great Waylon Jennings, “it’s the same old tune…it’s been the same way for years,” but that tune isn’t marked by mellifluous fiddle and guitar, no, it’s a cycle of deadlines approaching, accompanied by flaring tempers, press conferences, social media broadsides and finger-pointing everywhere. Meanwhile, the actual consequences for We the Peons manifest in missed paychecks, stalled services and uncertainty for federal workers, as well as citizens. All of that rains down on ordinary Americans, and when the cameras are shut off and everyone has left the press conferences, those members of Congress retreat, smugly, to their corners, likely laughing at the dysfunction outside of their tidy, cozy cocoons.
With theatrics and culture warring nonsense having replaced actual leadership, and slogans replacing solutions, it is no wonder that Americans are exhausted – we’re all tired of the speeches, the blame games and the gridlocked ideology of governance as a sport.
We the People deserve leaders who will act like adults, and sit down and hammer out compromises – because that is what governing requires of it.
Grandstanding and clinging to partisan purity is not the way to serve the American people, and refusing to negotiate is not standing firm, but shirking responsibility and betraying the public’s trust.
Voters should remember all of this during the midterms. Every lawmaker who has used the shutdown as leverage to extract partisan points should face the consequences at the ballot box. Every representative who treats their job as a chance to engage in theatrics should be shown the door.
The framers of the Constitution, despite deep differences, managed to create a functioning government by meeting in the middle. They understood that democracy requires discussion, not division, and it’s a lesson that today’s Congress could learn from. The refusal to govern, masked as “principled resistance,” is nothing more than dereliction of duty.
