There are so many ways Donald Trump can relate to furloughed federal workers unable to pay their bills because of his shutdown. For example; none of them were able to spend New Years Eve and day at Mar-a-Lago. Why, Trump was forced to spend it in the cold, drab White House. He probably didn’t even have those plastic little thingies that look like tiny champagne bottles with a string attached, and when you pull the string confetti flies out. Sad. Especially considering they’re the only noisemakers tiny-fingered people can play with.
Speaking to reporters Sunday about furloughed government workers, Trump said, “I can relate, and I’m sure that the people that are on the receiving end will make adjustments, they always do, and they’ll make adjustments. People understand exactly what’s going on. But many of those people that won’t be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100 percent with what I’m doing.”
Trump believes the bubble that is his Twitter page correctly gauges the mood of the nation. It doesn’t. Most government employees would rather have a paycheck, pay their bills, and feed their families than have a wall on the Mexican border. I can relate. I enjoy eating much more than erecting racist symbols in a desert.
We’re nearing three weeks into this Trump shutdown and on Friday, workers will miss their first paychecks. The rancor and anger at Donald Trump will surely increase by then and continue to grow after. Hundreds are actually setting up GoFundMe campaigns to try to make ends meet. According to CBS News, over 700 campaigns have been launched. I guess the government’s advice about doing chores for rent didn’t go over that well with landlords.
The Coast Guard also gave their employees helpful advice to make ends meet, such as babysitting (Senate Republicans will show you how to do that), dog walking, holding garage sales (let me know if you find any GOP backbones), and becoming a mystery shopper. Mystery shoppers are hired to rate businesses, but right now I’m pretty sure they’d all give Donald Trump a you-suck rating.
Trump is not hearing that message. He also said, “Many of those people, maybe most of those people, that really have not been — and will not be getting their money in at this moment — those people, in many cases, are the biggest fan of what we’re doing.” Yes, hostages love being hostages. They especially love being bartered for racist, medieval vanity projects.
Last Thursday, in a surprise briefing, Trump laid some more stupidity on us by saying, “I have never had so much support as I have in the last week over my stance for border security … or, frankly, the wall or the barrier. I have never had anything like it in terms of calls coming in, in terms of people writing in and tweeting. I’ve never had this much support.”
I’m not sure how those calls are coming in since the White House switchboard and the call-in phone line to the White House are not operating due to the government shutdown. Maybe they’re using the same line some of our former presidents used to tell Trump they wish they had built a wall. They probably said they wish they had BOUGHT The Wall because discovering that Pink Floyd album late in life truly is a tragedy.
A Quinnipiac poll found that 54% of Americans oppose the wall and a Harvard CAPS/Harris online survey found that number to be 56%. Despite this, Trump says he’s determined to keep the government shutdown for months or even years if he doesn’t get what his wants.
The Democrats in the House are passing bills to reopen the government but the Republican Senate refuses to hold votes on them. Despite their fear of Trump, Republicans will cave before we get to months of a shutdown. They already know this entire ordeal is stupid and is being waged over Trump’s pride and ego. When the public starts to come down on them, they’ll throw Trump under the bus to save their own skin. They’re Republicans. They’re cowards. It’s what they do. In two years, no one is going to punish them for funding the government, but voters will punish them if they keep this going.
The shutdown doesn’t just hurt those employed by the government. It hurts their families. It hurts government contractors. Businesses that rely on government workers are feeling the crunch. People with loans, mortgages, health care needs, tax situations, etc, will be impacted. This will go beyond the 800,000 government workers and stretch into the millions.
Donald Trump, a man who was given an allowance of over $200,000 a year by the time he was two, can’t relate to people who aren’t receiving paychecks. They don’t have a rich daddy to bail them out. They don’t have a sham university grifting stupid people. They don’t have charitable foundations they can steal from. They can’t license their name on cheap crap that only sells when people accidentally click the Buy-It-Now button. They don’t have Russian benefactors, and they probably can’t get loans from Deutsche Bank.
If Trump could relate to the pain and suffering of others, he wouldn’t use them as bargaining chips to satisfy his ego. He never would have started this useless shutdown over a broken campaign promise for a useless wall that Mexico was going to pay for. Right now, government workers are paying for Trump’s broken campaign promises. American workers are paying for Trump’s lies. The only way Trump could relate to those 800,000 furloughed is if they all have extremely tiny, mushroom-shaped penises.
When future historians get to this page, they’re going to say, “Well that was stupid.” They will also be educated on what happens to a nation when it elects an idiot to the highest office in the land…as they’re climbing out of the rubble that idiot left for them.
As I wrote and drew, the other day, Donald Trump is the national emergency. Republicans need to join Democrats, put their nation over a stupid cult of personality, and shut him down.
Email Clay Jones at [email protected]