Well, they said it wouldn’t happen, but it happened: Congress couldn’t reach a deal on a short-term budget deal to keep the government open. So, with the exception of vital and necessary services (for which many people doing those jobs won’t be paid), large swaths of the federal government are shut down, which will lead to things like closed national parks and hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees.
The political ramifications of this might be severe, but it’s not yet clear for whom. Could Democrats be blamed, because they led the charge on rejecting the Republicans’ plan, mostly because they couldn’t get an immigration/DACA plan they liked? Or will Republicans be blamed, because they control both the White House and the Senate and the House of Representatives and still couldn’t make things happen…much like what happened with all of the other failed attempts at passing legislation in the past year.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter to gloat over this supposed victory, suggesting Democrats shot themselves in the foot with this ploy.
Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018
However, those with a little bit more of a political science background, i.e., everybody who isn’t non-politician and reality TV host Donald Trump, beg to differ.