Today is the day we stop pretending that it’s not.

The Government Has Been Shut Down for Months

Today is the day we stop pretending that it’s not.

by David Dayen, Whitney Curry Wimbish

September 30, 2025

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
    992·
    25 days ago

    Like, Imagine you had a van. The van has passengers, and you’re one of them, but you’re way in the back. The driver can’t hear you and doesn’t care what you want or where you want to go. Then a new driver comes in and takes the van offroad. They drive in the wrong direction, and they keep hitting potholes and pedestrians and shit. Some of the people in the back are hootin and hollerin like it’s some awesome roller coaster, and also they hate the pedestrians and like when they are killed. And you’re like, please, just stop.

    And then the driver threatens to turn the car off.

    I mean, yeah, you need the aircon, and it would be nice to be going somewhere, but the driver is definitely not going in the right direction, and the longer he drives, the more damage he does to the van.

    Right now the government is worse than shut down. It’s actively doing bad things. I’d rather the government start doing good things, but that’s not currently an option available to me.

    • BossDj@piefed.socialEnglish
      32·
      25 days ago

      The analogy is brilliant.

      But they key players aren’t in it for the ride. The bumps, pedestrians, etc. is all just to get the people in the back to get loud. While the van is stopped, the driver and navigators will be yelling in their megaphone how the van stopped because of you, but also the past driver broke it. They’ll continue mapping their off-road course and devising how to replace the locks so the driver can’t be replaced, and promising to pay people outside the van later to go shoot the pedestrians for now instead.

      Meanwhile, it’s just getting hotter and the handful of people who were tossing water bottles out the window and other aid to help the pedestrians have also come to a standstill.

      MAYBE some of the idiots in the van actually start demanding it move again, but more likely they’ll be yelling at you for some reason

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
      16·
      25 days ago

      I don’t think the “bad things” part would actually be shut down. At least not most of it. The entire federal govt doesn’t actually just stop.

      • SillyDude@lemmy.zip
        6·
        25 days ago

        The military and any federal LEO will remain functioning. This is how they dismantle everything in the federal government except for the parts that keep them protected. No hassle of removing people and replacing them with people who will shut themselves down, like the DoE. Now everything is just shut off. Done.