It’s been nearly a month since the government shut down, and Speaker Mike Johnson’s brilliant solution to the crisis appears to be… locking the House of Representatives outside the building. Yes, instead of reopening the government, Johnson has decided it’s safer for America if the people’s representatives stay far away from the people’s business.
In his words, it’s “better” for Republicans and Democrats, “probably, to be physically separated right now… I wish that weren’t the case, but we do have to turn the volume down,” he said. Translation: the toddlers keep biting each other, so we sent them home for a nap.
Senate Republicans, ever the enablers, are applauding this “strategy” like proud parents watching a preschool teacher finally find the time-out corner. “I’d send them on a CODEL to the other side of the moon,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, referring to a congressional delegation trip, because nothing says responsible governance like ejecting your colleagues from orbit (come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea).
To be fair, Johnson might have a point. The House GOP has all the discipline of a Waffle House at 3 a.m. Between Marjorie Taylor Greene threatening to primary the universe and backbenchers staging performative meltdowns in the Rotunda, Washington has started to feel less like a seat of government and more like an endless audition for Real Housewives of the Republican Caucus. By keeping them scattered across America, Johnson may have accidentally discovered the only thing that can lower the Capitol’s temperature: distance.
Still, shutting down both the government and your own chamber Is a curious approach to leadership, . Johnson insists the House is on “48-hour notice” to return, like a fire brigade waiting for a sign from God. Meanwhile, federal workers go unpaid, national parks remain closed, and the economy drifts while the Speaker keeps the lights off and congratulates himself on “message discipline.”
The whole episode feels less like a governing strategy and more like witness protection for the Republican wing nuts. The party’s leaders know that every time a microphone gets too close to one of their colleagues, someone compares a continuing resolution to communism or confuses the deficit with drag queens. Easier, then, to keep the caucus at home, out of sight, and away from cameras—except for those moments when they can post selfies declaring “Biden’s America is chaos” from the comfort of their taxpayer-funded offices.
So here we are: a government in shutdown, a speaker hiding his own members like embarrassing relatives, and senators cheering him on from the grown-ups’ table. Johnson calls it “turning down the volume.” The rest of us might call it what it is: a governing party so terrified of its own unhinged members that it’s put itself in semi-permanent mute. If only they would do that while they were working so they could get things done, instead of collecting taxpayer money while “essential” government workers toil in silence and forced austerity.
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