Americans are watching their SNAP benefits disappear, federal workers are missing paychecks, and families are canceling travel plans as airports struggle with staffing shortages. The government shutdown has stretched on for weeks, leaving millions wondering who’s really responsible for their hardship. While politicians point fingers and trade blame, the truth about who’s keeping the government closed has been carefully hidden behind a fog of political rhetoric.
The mainstream media would have you believe this is just another case of Washington gridlock, with both parties equally at fault. (Spoiler alert: they weren’t even trying to hide it.) But what if one party was deliberately prolonging the shutdown, using American suffering as leverage for their political agenda? What if they were so confident in their strategy that they openly admitted it on national television?
From Breitbart:
On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Briefing,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that “Republicans have dealt themselves a six-week paid vacation” on the government shutdown and Republicans “say wink, wink, come on back, let’s just reopen the government, and everything will be fine. No, they’re going to continue to do what they’ve been doing. So, we’re going to hold the line” on the issue of the shutdown…
“But no, they say wink, wink, come on back, let’s just reopen the government, and everything will be fine. No, they’re going to continue to do what they’ve been doing. So, we’re going to hold the line for the health care for tens of millions of people, and for SNAP benefits, to reopen the government, and also, as somebody who represents tens of thousands of federal workers, I would like everybody who has been illegally RIFed during this process to be reinstated as part of that deal.”
There it is – the quiet part said out loud. (Guess nobody told Raskin the cameras were rolling?) Democrats are “holding the line” on keeping the government shut down. Despite his attempts to blame Republicans, Raskin inadvertently revealed the truth: his party is the one refusing to reopen the government. They’re the ones keeping SNAP benefits frozen, federal workers unpaid, and essential services offline.
Democrats Choose Politics over People
Here’s where it gets really rich. This isn’t just one congressman going rogue. Senate liberals are reportedly “unified” in their strategy to continue the shutdown, with sources confirming they’re “coalescing around a unified strategy” to block any attempt to reopen the government. They’ve rejected multiple continuing resolutions, each time moving the goalposts for what they’ll accept. Senator Chris Murphy even admitted they received a “message” that “people want us to fight,” though one has to wonder if those people include the families going without food assistance or the federal workers facing financial ruin.
The sheer audacity here? Chef’s kiss of cynicism.
Raskin’s party claims to champion the working class, yet they’re using working families as pawns in their political chess game. They demand extensions of ACA premium subsidies while holding SNAP benefits hostage. They insist on reinstating federal workers while keeping those same workers from receiving paychecks. It’s political theater that would make Shakespeare weep, with real Americans paying the price for Democratic ambitions.
The Real Shutdown Culprits
Republicans, meanwhile, have shown actual willingness to compromise. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has offered to guarantee a vote on the very subsidies the left claims to want. He’s even indicated support for recalling federal workers affected by reductions in force. But Senate Democrats have rejected these overtures, preferring to keep the government closed rather than accept anything less than total victory.
The math isn’t hard here.
As Thune noted, there are Democrats “who really want to do the right thing and get this over with,” but they’re under “enormous pressure from the left” to maintain the shutdown. This pattern should sound familiar to anyone who’s watched liberal tactics over the years. Create a crisis, blame Republicans, then demand ransom to end the suffering they’ve caused. Same playbook, different day – counting on media allies to obscure their role in manufacturing these disasters.
Democrats are betting that their media advantage will let them escape accountability for the suffering they’re deliberately prolonging. They’ve calculated that the pain they’re inflicting will somehow translate into political gain, that voters will blame Republicans despite liberals openly admitting they’re the ones “holding the line” against reopening the government.
Key Takeaways
- Democrats openly admitted to “holding the line” on keeping the government closed
- Senate Democrats unified in blocking reopening despite Republican compromise offers
- Working families’ SNAP benefits held hostage for political leverage
- Pattern reveals party willing to inflict pain for political gain
