America’s government shutdown isn’t a public relations win for the country, but to channel President Trump when he responded to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling him a racist: “Who cares?”
Trump has never cared about what may seem embarrassing; he has cared about long-term goals. An added bonus to the shutdown? A number of U.S. officials have told me that they have been able to work much more effectively without the drag of anti-Trump, life-long government apparatchiks.
A senior Trump official wrote as much in an op-ed.
Another benefit is that as time drags on, the American public will begin to ask further questions of why they pay so much for government in the first instance, when so much of this shutdown is scarcely noticeable.
An IPSOS-NPR poll that garnered coverage for claiming a majority of Americans found the shutdown “embarrassing” also saw other parts of its data sets completely ignored by the media.
Question 10 in the poll suggested a significant majority of Americans have not been affected by the shutdown, which has now dragged on for the better part of a month.
Take a second to think about that.
Government allegedly services the people, and the nation. But the people and the nation are scarcely impacted when much of the government hasn’t been at work for a month. What an amazing way to prove libertarians right. The U.S. government is drastically oversized.
Only 27 percent of those polled — with typically skewed methodology — told IPSOS and NPR that they had been affected by this shutdown.
I want to say this again, just so we’re clear.
The government has been shut down for a month and most people haven’t been affected.
Sure, it is regrettable that those who rely on certain services, or indeed those who rely upon government pay slips, will find themselves in more dire straits as the shutdown drags on. But that raises questions as to whether or not government should be relied upon in that regard.
Additionally, government workers often have other benefits to their jobs which private sector workers don’t necessarily have. So there’s a trade-off in making that career choice. One should know, if history is any guide, that being furloughed is possible at any juncture if you have a government job.
Nevertheless, the statistics surrounding those impacted by the government shutdown go some way to explaining why the Democrats and their media allies are constantly pumping up the hysteria: the probably know very few people are actually affected.
CNN even maintains a “shutdown ticker” on its “news” channel, to remind you how long you haven’t been the beneficiary of all that lovely government work for.
But eventually, the worm will turn.
Maybe it’ll take another few days. Maybe it’ll be another few weeks.
But sooner or later, Americans are going to realize they don’t need all that government at all.
If I were a furloughed worker today, I’d probably start looking for a new job. Because the Democrats in Congress are proving to America that many of you are not just non-essential in the short term.
You’re non-essential, period.
Raheem Kassam (@RaheemKassam) is a fellow at the Claremont Institute and the Middle East Forum. He is the author of two bestselling books: “No Go Zones” and “Enoch Was Right.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.
