SUMMARY: This urgent post highlights the impending government shutdown and the severe consequences it holds. It sheds light on the historical ineffectiveness of government shutdowns and their exorbitant costs. It emphasizes the detrimental impact on government employees and businesses depending on government contracts. The author passionately calls on readers to take action by contacting their Congress person to support a clean continuing resolution. A detailed guide on how to make effective calls is provided. The post also delves into the unproductive, malignant, and narcissistic traits of Trump and explains the motivations behind the Republicans’ destructive behavior. It underscores the importance of holding politicians accountable.
KEY WORDS: Government shutdown, Negotiating tactics, Good faith, bad faith, Continuing resolution, Call your member of Congress, Unproductive malignant narcissist, Trump, the Freedom Caucus
We only have until September 30th to stop the impending government shutdown, which feels like a speeding train coming straight at us! It’s getting closer every minute! Everyone freak out! The Republicans are not only going to send their 2024 Congressional chances up in flame, they’re going to burn us all up in their dumbster fire.
When Have Government Shut Downs Ever Produced Anything Other Than Misery and Expense?
Given how dire the situation is here’s what you need to know:
1 Government shutdowns NEVER work. Nothing good has ever come out of a government shutdown. Just ask Ted Cancun Cruz about 2013. Historically, the side with demands gets minor concessions in the end, which can then be defeated or mitigated in later congressional actions. As a negotiating tactic, they are completely bankrupt. The other side makes minimal concessions that are then negated because the pressure to reopen the government supersedes all.
2 They are expensive. Ronnie Rayguns in his infinite governing wisdom cost us $117 million dollars in 36 hours of shutdown to achieve something that good faith negotiating could have achieved without the expense. Trump cost us five billion dollars because he pitched a fit over his border wall in a 35 day shutdown. Do we have a border wall? Nuff said. To recap points one and two, they are expensive and they don’t achieve anything that good faith negotiations wouldn’t have gotten us anyway. In fact, they probably get the shutdown side less than what they would’ve had they just been proper governing partners.
3 They hurt A LOT of people, mainly government employees, but also the businesses that depend on government contracts. As much as the GOP hates the bureaucrats that run our governments at all levels, we need those folks. They are the way we get shit done. Most government employees (Full disclosure, my mother dedicated a whopping forty years of her life to federal civil service, so I might be a little biased) are proud patriotic Americans who contribute vital skills and knowledge to our success. All the shutdown achieves is driving these good people out of government service.
4 THE CONCLUSION is that it is well past time to call your Congress person, especially your representative, and tell them that we need a clean continuing resolution passed to keep the government open and functioning. If you agree, and only want to find out how to make the call, you can find the deets at the end of the post. I’ll have a script to follow and the links to Congressional offices. If you want to do more, here’s my explainer on calling your member of Congress. Otherwise, keep reading for some snarky, sarcasticky, profaney explanation of why the Freedumb Cockus is damn dumb and willing to take us all down with them.
The Unproductive, Malignant, and Narcissistic Traits of Trump are the ONLY Reason for the Shut Down
The explanation is based, like everything else in contemporary Republican fascist politics, in Trump’s unproductive malignant narcissism. Follow the links for Trump’s full diagnosis. But, the short version is:
- UNPRODUCTIVE: He has no executive functioning, which means he can’t control his emotions, plan, or execute plans. It is why he has the feculent touch.
- MALIGNANT: He is sadistic. He does things just to hurt people. Just ask the Georgia GOP how they like the senators.
- NARCISSISM: He’s a textbook case of a narcissist. Everything is about him. He is perfect (Sir! Sir! How do you know so much about this? and this classic, …So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it...) and knows more than everyone else. And, nothing is ever his fault.
The problem is that Trump and all narcissists are expert at looping people into their delusions because narcissism is all about the delusion of being perfect and being unable to tolerate any evidence to the contrary. He has to surround himself with sycophants who will die for his delusion of perfection. That sounds healthy, right?
The Motivations Behind the Self-Serving Republicans
The only people willing to do that on the scale that Trump needs as a politician are those who are Machiavellian, psychopathic, or narcissistic enough to go along for personal gain. These would people like Prom-Date Gaetz, Maddog Greene, and James “My name’s not skeevy” Cumer. There may be a few true believers in there, but those three plus most of the Freedumb Cockus are just ambitious climbers looking to ride the Trump MAGA wave as far as it will take them.
In for a nickel, in for a dime, right? Now, that they’ve inserted their noses in Trump’s ass, they feel like they’ve got no choice but to keep pushing. It’s hard to give up on the dream of self-aggrandizement and shameless self-promotion even when it requires clinging to the burning corpses of everyone and everything around you.
Denial is the longest river in Egypt for a reason.
The Gaslit Delusion of the Freedumb Cockus
Why are these self-serving parasitic overproduced elites willing to destroy everything just so they can remain a House backbencher coasting for the next twenty years on white grievance and outrage?
For one, they don’t believe the rest of us will let them destroy the country, but we will keep returning them to their office because divisive social issues. They don’t believe they’ll be held accountable.
For another, they believe that if Trump gets elected, he will complete the devolution of our democracy to a single-party psuedo-democratic fascist oligarchy where all of their pet racial and social angsts will be eliminated. They have dreams of goose stepping hand-in-hand over corpse bridges, eating the heart-shaped hearts of the recently-born unwanted babies of the poor hapless harlots, singing Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles into fascist Nirvana.
And, lastly, gaslighting works. The likes of Gaetz and Greene et al. seem to believe that the vast majority of Americans agree with them. Whether they genuinely believe in their divisive rhetoric or cynically employ it for political gain is purposively unclear. At any rate, they paint a distorted picture of Americans, labeling them as pro-forced birth, racist, and transphobic. Additionally, their stranglehold on power is based on a forty year build up of intimidation through gun violence.
The Importance of Holding Politicians Accountable
They are willing to burn it all down because they myopically pursue short-term self-interest even if it means the GOP loses control of the House in 2024. Even if it means that Trump or statewide candidates can’t win in 2024. As long as they can pander to their base to ensure their reelection, they don’t care. It is as simple as that.
Go ahead, pick up that phone and give your representative a piece of your mind. They love hearing from their constituents, or so they claim.
Here’s what you need to to be successful.
Urgent Call to Action: Contact Your Congress Person
How to Call Your Member of Congress
Be Prepared
- Call during business hours of the area code their office is in. Typically, that is 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
- Have a script or notes to follow so you don’t forget anything.
- Understand your Member of Congress so that you are making an effective appeal, depending on whether they are Democratic or Repube, supporting the issue or against, progressive, moderate, or conservative, or a part of the rank and file or member of leadership. Each have a different set of issues to contend with. Find the complete exploration of the “types” of Congressional person you are likely to find at Call Your Member of Congress: The Save Our Democracy, edition.
- Have a script. Perhaps use this one:
The Script
Adapt this script for phone calls and emails.
Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [STATE and LOCALITY].
I’m calling today to urge you to support a bipartisan clean continuing resolution to keep our government open and functioning. Government shut downs do not help anyone and are incredibly expensive.
We need to stick to the budget deal that President Biden and the Congressional leaders negotiated last spring. We cannot afford a shut down, and we need a fully funded government with money for climate-driven disasters and democracy-defending aide to Ukraine. Just like the Republicans agreed to.
Thank you for your time and attention.
IF LEAVING A VOICEMAIL: please leave your full street address to ensure your call is tallied.
Be Polite
- Be polite! No matter whose office you’re contacting or how you’re contacting them. No matter what their positions are. No matter how inflamed you are about the issue — and you should be very passionate — be polite.
- Remember that the people you are talking to are people! So, be nice.
- The people answering the phone and opening the mail are usually interns or low-level staffers. If you can’t play nice, then you’re just traumatizing someone, which is never a good thing.
Contacting Your MoC
Get your MoC’s contact information, contact information for others, track legislation, and some other information in this list and these links.
- Common Cause will give you the names, party affiliation, direct phone number, website link, and social media platforms of all of your federal, state, and local elected officials.
- GovTrack is a comprehensive site of federal and state legislation.
- USA.gov is the official guide to information and services of the US government. This page explains clearly how to contact everyone from the Ol’ Pussy Grabber to your representative to specific government agencies. Through it you can find the following information about your MoC’s:
- Their phone numbers: DC and state offices
- Their mailing addresses both in DC and their state offices
- Official website with their contact page including email, request a meeting, town hall schedules, and social media
- And, the committees they sit on
- 5 Calls: Sign-up for 5 Calls because they help you contact your member of Congress and keep you abreast of on going issues that are important to you! Now, that is a good deal.
- The Capital Hill Switch Board: (202) 224-3121.
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: His DC office, (202) 224-6542.
- Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy: His DC office, (202) 225-2915
- The WH switchboard: (202) 456-1414 or the comments line at (202) 456-1111 during business hours
Join Indivisible
Follow the link to Indivisible to find a group near you, their campaigns, events in your neighborhood, and download their handy-dandy booklet!
If you think calling your members of Congress is something every American should be doing, then consider doing one of these:
- SHARE this post with friends, family, acquaintances, or complete strangers on your favorite social media platforms, re-blog on your favorite blog, or just tell someone about it! The Psy of Life isn’t hard to remember until you get in front of the goggling machine again.
- LIKE or SHARE this post using the buttons before and after the post. Remember, you don’t have to have a WordPress account to rate a post, and it really is encouraging to see the stars and likes.
- COMMENT on this post. Let us know if you called and what happened. Let us know why you think the Freedumb Cockus is doing this. There is nothing better than discussing the issues with smart well-informed passionate folks.
- FOLLOW the blog or join our amazingly growing email list:
Image Attribution
“Continuing resolution” by sakura_chihaya+ is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Share this:
Categories: Politics
The Psy of Life 
It’s, unbelievable, that, in one of the, “freest” countries in the, modern day world, that, people are, stupid enough, not to mention, uneducated, that, they are, allowing this, cultist party, to, brain wash them, and, those of you, who are sane, and, living on U.S. soil, can’t, do a thing about it, allowing the Republican Party, to, kidnap people’s voices, and, unless, some higher up members of the, Republican Party, suddenly, grows that, much-needed, conscience, there’s no way, that the, U.S., won’t, fall…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy Taurus!
Yes it is unbelievable that the race is polling as close as it is and that support for such a blatantly anti-democratic autocratic party is as high as it is. However, it is the reason that the GOP has consistently supported gutting the education system in the US.
And, we will surely fall unless we hold them accountable by handing them a huge loss in 2024.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLike
Well said, sir!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. It needed saying.
Jack
LikeLike
As little hope as I have for my MOC (I live in the district that produced Mark Meadows and following him that brat whose name I’ve managed to misplace.), still, maybe, just maybe, if he gets enough calls…
LikeLiked by 1 person
They might even talk to each other, “Hey, are you suddenly getting calls about passing a clean continuing resolution? That Psy of Life must’ve published sumthin!”
Jack
LikeLike
That would be a feather in your cap. 🙂 I sent the link along to the keeper of the mailing list of my local Indivisible group.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Much appreciated.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re welcome
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whatever happens with the current clown show, we have to remember that the Debt Ceiling Extension negotiated in the Spring will expire in March, and this gang will again try to hold the Full Faith and Credit hostage again. And, whatever comes of that, short of actual default, they will doing the whole shutdown play a year from now, in an election year no less.
Since the GOP caucus in the House is non-functional, and McCarthy is likely to get removed as Speaker if only Republicans vote for him, his only hope that I can see to keep the job (if he still wants it) is to make a deal with Democrats and swing district Republicans and try to govern bipartisan. In that case he will get a primary challenge and probably lose.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy Bob!
I thought the deal negotiated last year would carry us through two years past the 2024 election. The deal isn’t being kept by the Freedom Caucus now, I don’t see why it won’t be then.
Hakeem Jeffers will take a page out of Pelosi’s playbook and (a) let the circle firing squad wound and cripple the GOP as much as possible and (b) make a deal with McCarthy for Dem votes. It probably is in the Dems best interest to keep McCarthy as Speaker. The alternative is to have the GOP in such disarray that they can’t agree on a Speaker, or they elect Gaetz. Either way, nothing good can come out of it.
You know the old political saying, when your opponent is blowing up, stand back and watch.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
Being a Republican Speaker of the House has been a miserable job for quite some time, and it has only gotten worse over time. If McCarthy goes down, I don’t think Gaetz or anybody else they’ve got could promise the various factions enough contradictory things to get elected with only GOP votes. The failure of the expected Red Wave in ’22 really did hurt them badly. They’ve got no slack in their majority and an unworkable coalition. If this were a Parliamentary system the PM would have had to resign months ago and either form a different coalition, or call new elections.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy Bob!
How ironic. The very thing that has made MAGA what it is is now stopping them from having an effective majority, a refusal to compromise. They’ve extended Cruz’s driving idea in the government shutdown in ’13, paraphrasing here, “The way to win is simple, you don’t compromise,” to other Republicans.
I guess it just shows the vapidness and bankruptcy of the notion of not compromising.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
Especially when it is the only thing you know how to do.
LikeLiked by 1 person