Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Here we are, day thirty-eight of the Great Government Shutdown — or, more accurately, the Great GOP Hostage Crisis. Let’s stop pretending this is some bipartisan accident or unfortunate misunderstanding. This is a Republican-engineered shutdown, pure and simple, and they’re holding the entire country hostage with a menu of false choices no decent government should ever serve: “Would you like to destroy your healthcare, starve your children, or maybe — just maybe — we’ll consider releasing the Epstein files?”

Yes, those are your options in GOP America 2025: pick your poison, but don’t you dare expect compassion or competence. Because cruelty, as always, is the point.

While members of the House (mostly the same ones who caused this mess) are off on a month-long paid vacation, the nation staggers under their political tantrum. TSA agents still show up unpaid, air traffic controllers still guide planes for free, and now even air travel is grinding to a halt because, surprise — people tend to stop working when they stop getting paid. Meanwhile, the folks responsible for this idiocy are sunning themselves somewhere, pretending to “reflect” on the state of the nation between rounds of golf and catered dinners.

And why? Because the GOP has turned governance into a sick game of chicken — except the only ones swerving are working Americans. They’re demanding we choose between feeding children through SNAP benefits or keeping healthcare clinics open. Between funding life-saving ACA provisions or bowing to yet another round of political blackmail. And just for good measure, they dangle the Epstein files — a set of documents they seem terrified to release — as if that somehow justifies their moral bankruptcy.

Let’s not mince words: this shutdown is an act of cruelty dressed up as fiscal responsibility. It’s a deliberate effort to prove that government doesn’t work — by making sure it doesn’t. The people suffering aren’t the ones who caused this disaster. It’s the TSA agent missing rent, the FAA worker pulling double shifts for nothing, the single mom wondering if her child’s healthcare will vanish with the next tantrum from the Speaker’s office.

Meanwhile, the same crowd preaching “personal responsibility” is perfectly fine collecting taxpayer-funded paychecks while you foot the bill for their incompetence.

So yes, this is a GOP shutdown — through and through. It’s not about principle, it’s not about freedom, it’s not even about fiscal discipline. It’s about control. It’s about cruelty. And it’s about keeping the truth — and the Epstein files — buried under layers of bureaucratic chaos and partisan fog.

Welcome to Day 38: where the government’s grounded, the cruelty’s airborne, and the GOP’s still on vacation — laughing all the way to the bank you can’t access.