The shutdown showed why everybody hates Congress (and the media)

The whole political class gamifies actions that harm ordinary people. They all deserve voter scorn.

Who won the shutdown battle? Who lost? With the government set to reopen after a self-inflicted six- week closure, the ruling class in Washington, DC is obsessing over who gained and who squandered political points during the drama.

Ordinary people don’t think this way. Political elites of both parties fool themselves into believing that earnest citizens sit at home evaluating the arcane policy positions each faction stakes out in political battles such as this, and then firmly side with one or the other. Polls perpetuate the fiction by asking oversimplified questions and generating false precision about public opinion among voters who are confused and rightly cynical about their leaders’ motivations.

Instead of asking whether you blame Republicans or Democrats for the shutdown, an honest poll might start with these sorts of questions: Do you really have time to figure out what they’re fighting over in Congress? Aren’t they all lying, anyway? Do you hate both political parties? Do you blame everybody in Washington?

I’m willing to assert, without any polling evidence, that most Americans think Congress should never have shut down the government and that the biggest losers were ordinary working people. Airport staffing shortages led to thousands of canceled flights. For what? Food aid for 42 million people became scarce. For what? Nearly two million federal workers haven’t been getting paid. What is the f-ing point?

Anybody who thinks one political party or the other “won” the shutdown battle is dismissing the collateral damage it caused, or is simply willing to harm regular folks as long as there’s some political gain for a few suits inside the Beltway. If you’re wondering why Congress has a dismal 15% approval rating, this is why.

The media isn’t doing much better. Trust in the media is at a new low of 28%. You can see why as you peruse the shutdown coverage and get more of the same gamesmanship the politicians are peddling. Here’s a sampling of what the media has to say about the shutdown:

Democrats should have kept the shutdown going longer: Only 8 of 47 Democratic-leaning senators voted to reopen the government, meaning most of them wanted to continue the shutdown. In the Atlantic, Jonathan Chait argues that “the shutdown was actually working for Democrats,” and that they should have kept it going. That would have meant more canceled flights and more hunger, so that “Democrats … could have spent weeks watching Trump’s approval ratings fall.”

But wait, maybe the Democrats won. Jon Allsop of the New Yorker argues that “Democrats did succeed on the merits” because the shutdown highlighted Trump’s corruption and focused attention on health care as an affordability problem. That implies that some voter pain is worth some Democratic gain.

Or maybe Republicans won. Trump’s approval rating suffered during the shutdown, but now there’s a civil war in the Democratic Party between the moderates who voted to end the shutdown and the liberals who wanted to keep it going. Democratic woes are good for Republicans. So maybe voter pain is worth some Republican gain.

But it could just be a draw. Ezra Klein of the New York Times explains that “Democrats, if you look at the polls, are ending up in a better [position] than they were in when they started … It’s not a win … but it’s better than a loss.” Well, if the polls say so.

All of this analysis comes from the same playbook the politicians are working from: You keep score by assessing who wins or loses a political advantage. Voter welfare is an afterthought. You might think your side has a just cause, which the Democratic priority of affordable healthcare for more people arguably is. But it’s glib to say that real harm caused to real people by the shutdown is worth it because some people might benefit in the future.

There was always an alternative to the shutdown. Democrats refused to support spending bills for six weeks because they thought the drama of a shutdown would bring more attention to health care subsidies they’re trying to pass and to Trump’s many flaws. But they could have fought for the subsidies, and against Trump, without a shutdown. Maybe those causes would have gotten less attention, but that would have come without the harm caused to shutdown victims.

Democrats just won three prominent elections in the races for New York City mayor and the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia. None of those candidates campaigned by praising the shutdown, or by promoting any type of political warfare. They all won by addressing affordability concerns and offering solutions.

Those were real wins—at the ballot box—not maneuvering ploys hurting people on the phony premise that some greater good awaits. If you want voters to win, help them where you can and just be honest with them when you can’t.