The Shutdown Is a Knife at a Gunfight
The two sides may forge a deal, but what difference will it make to a president who doesn’t respect Congress at all?
The shutdown of the federal government that began on October 1, now the second-longest in history, has also been called the “most bizarre” and the “weirdest.” What makes this fight so unusual is that it is simultaneously the least angry of the five major shutdowns since 1990 and also the hardest to resolve.
Previous shutdowns were fought over specific grievances: Republican pressure against new taxes in 1990, then for spending cuts in 1995–96 and again in 2013; Democratic resistance to Donald Trump’s border wall in 2018–19. At 35 days, that latter shutdown holds the record for the longest—for now.
