For a month, Americans got a crash course on the topic of all the things the government does and who does them.
"Government worker" was no longer a slur for many Americans who previously considered these workers overpaid, nonproductive and partisan. The government employees many Americans might have previously disdained are the ones who inspect food, direct planes, process tax refunds, fight criminals, etc. Without them, it turns out, life is more dangerous, chaotic and stressful for all of us.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray railed about the shutdown in a video to his employees. He exemplified the compassionate, high-minded leadership utterly lacking in the White House. His message stood in stark contrast to the almost comically insensitive comments from administration officials making light of real people’s suffering.
It’s remarkable, when you think about it, that government workers showed up at all — spending money for gas or public transportation and in many cases for day care — when they were not getting paid. That should inspire admiration but also outrage.
And it did. Many Americans began to ask how in the world we could force employees to work when the government has no obligation to pay them. (The technical answer: The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act bans federal workers from striking.) Democrats would be wise to insist on barring future shutdowns (by providing for an automatic continuing resolution when budget funding lapses) or, alternatively, by protecting government employees from being disciplined if they don't show up in a shutdown.
Ultimately, government employees' determination to withhold their services — at the Internal Revenue Service and at airports in particular - forced the president’s hand. The Washington Post reported, “In the end, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, the public’s mounting worry about the shutdown’s economic impact moved politicians off their hard stances. ‘With public sentiment, you can accomplish anything,’ she said.” And without the actions of government employees, public sentiment might never have shifted so dramatically against President Trump and the shutdown.
Going forward, politicians and voters alike would be wise to keep in mind several lessons.
First, government workers are ordinary Americans, not pampered elites who get to slough off and live high on the hog. They deserve respect and protection from further shutdown hardship.
Second, the “deep state” — the conspiratorial fantasy of a government-wide cabal of left-wing activists — becomes even more ridiculous than it otherwise would be when you see the faces and learn the identities of real government workers. These aren’t political rabble-rousers or activists; in fact, in working for the government they give up certain political rights (per the Hatch Act and government ethics rules). Trump’s cartoonish accusations about the deep state and sabotage by bureaucrats should be called out for what they are - total nonsense.
Third, the Republicans' antigovernment animus is built on a lie, namely that government does no good ("government is the problem") and if we got rid of it, or large chunks of it, we'd be better off. In their real world, people like the services they get from government (everything from national parks to safe air travel to safe food and medicine) and depend on the smooth operation of government. They rightly want better, more efficient and more responsive government, but they don't want to return to the pre-New Deal era or even the pre-Great Society era. If Republicans think so poorly of government and government workers, they should find another line of work and leave the the hard work of reform to those who think government has the capacity to help regular people.
We have been reminded that careless, ignorant, clueless people are in the White House and in Trump’s Cabinet. It’s they who endanger our safety and prosperity. The people doing the day-to-day work of the government are not the problem. Indeed, in the case of the shutdown, they may have been the solution to the administration' colossal misjudgment and obliviousness.
Jennifer Rubin | The Washington Post
Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post.
