Donald Trump has set a new record: for the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, surpassing the 21 days long one in 1995-96 during Clinton’s presidency. The shutdown effects less than half the Federal departments; the others have budgets that were passed by Congress and signed by President Trump last year. More than 800,000 Federal workers are not being paid, and as a result the offices of Internal Revenue Service, which collected taxes, the departments that issue subsidies for food and rent to the poor and to farmers both rich and poor, and the workers who inspect food and airplanes for safety all are closed.
Workers deemed essential are being forced to work with the promise that they will be paid for their work once the budget is approved. However, those workers like many other Americans often have no money in the bank and live from paycheck to paycheck and have fallen into financial crisis now that they are not being paid. Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors calculated that the loss of government spending already had cut the economy by 0.5% after the first 4 weeks of the shutdown.
Essential government services are being effected. Some of the furloughed workers have quit their government jobs or, more often, are calling in sick because they need to take other temporary jobs to bring in money to tide them over. Airports are experiencing long lines at security checkpoints because so many of those government inspectors have called in sick.
The shutdown is not due to differences over the budget. Congress agreed on a budget in December 2018. President Trump approved the deal and was ready to sign. Then some of Trump’s most extreme supporters on Fox News denounced him for agreeing yet again to a budget that did not include enough funding to build his promised wall along the border with Mexico. Trump did not want to appear weak in front of his anti-immigrant and racist base and announced he would not sign the budget bill.
Government shutdowns have a dynamic similar to labor strikes. Each side knows that it can reach an agreement by making concessions, but it also assumes that the other side will give in as it suffers the consequences of the shutdown or strike. Eventually, it becomes clear that one side or the other has miscalculated its degree of strength, or its opponents’ weakness. Usually when that happens the side that misjudged gives in and accepts (sometimes with minor concessions) a deal they could have gotten without the costs of a strike or shutdown.
Trump appears to be the one who has miscalculated. As the shutdown continues more and more Americans are feeling its effects. Farmers, who are a bedrock of electoral support for Trump and Republicans in general, are not receiving subsidy checks that are vital to the payments they must make now as they prepare for spring planting. Long security lines at airports anger flyers, who as businessmen and well-off leisure travelers are disproportionately Republicans. If a plane crashes or there is a major outbreak of foodborne illness, Trump will certainly get the blame.
A minority of voters sees illegal immigrants and the drugs and crime they supposedly bring to the Untied States as such a danger that they are willing to put up with the costs of a prolonged government shutdown. But those voters are too few to swing an election, except in a few states or Congressional districts. Government shutdowns almost always cause presidents to lose support. Not only will Trump suffer politically from the shutdown. Republicans running for Congress and state and local offices will lose support because they support Trump’s intransigence.
Immigration is a powerful political issue throughout the world. When and wherever large numbers of immigrants arrive suddenly significant fractions of the local population react with unease and often anger. Politicians who present the immigrants as alien and dangerous win support. This has happened in recent years not only in the U.S., but also in much of Europe, and countries in Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia. However, once the flow of immigration subsides the anger dissipates. That now is happening in the U.S. Immigration from Mexico, the main source of arrivals, stopped at the end of the 1990s and now has reversed. More people are moving from the U.S. to Mexico than the reverse. Immigrants from Central America get lots of media attention but are tiny in actual numbers.
Immigration was much less of an issue in the 2018 election than it was in 2016. Trump’s efforts to sow panic over what he called refugee caravans failed to swing Congressional elections. Areas where voters responded to that “issue” were ones where racism and bigotry already ensured Republican victories. In 2020 voters will care most of all about the state of the economy, which now is being harmed by the shutdown.
It will be difficult for Trump to abandon his focus on immigration, even if he and the Republicans would benefit politically from an end to the shutdown and instead worked on addressing voters’ real concerns. Trump’s base, from which he can elicit constant adulation, cares about that issue. Trump’s self-image as a tough and uncompromising leader is based on his endlessly repeated claim he would build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Of course, Trump’s demand that money for the wall be included in the U.S. budget demonstrates the fact that Mexico will never pay for the wall, but his supporters so far ignore that and seem happy if he can make Congress finance the wall instead. Thus, the standoff could continue for a long time. Eventually, the costs to the economy and to public health and safety will get too large and pressure on the Republicans to abandon the wall will reach a level that will get Congress to pass a budget that Trump will either reluctantly sign or will be enacted over his veto.
The shutdown and the suffering it causes are the price America is paying for Trump’s macho delusions and for Congressional Republicans‘ unwillingness to challenge him. Of course, that price is far less than Americans and Vietnamese paid for Johnson and Nixon’s macho fantasies, and less than we could endure if Trump instead validated himself with an aggressive foreign policy.
