Shutdown Crawls On Without Much Hope. Can Dems Win on the Economy? Is the Venezuela Debate a Trap?

This shutdown just isn’t letting up, and at this point, I’ve watched the narrative evolve from “this is just a temporary stall” to “well, now it’s affecting 41 million people’s SNAP benefits.” Look, let’s be blunt. We’re not even close to the end. The longer this goes on, the stinkier it gets. I’m talking compost bin left out in the Vegas sun level stink. The kind where even opening the lid makes you recoil. That’s where we are with this mess.

There’s polling out that shows 25 percent blame congressional Republicans, 27 percent blame Donald Trump, and a full half of the country blames Democrats. So we’re well past the point of political ambiguity. You want to shut down the government? Fine. But own it. Stop pretending it’s being done to you. This is a choice. And a lot of the consequences are already hitting — not theoretical, not long-term, not waiting for some CBO report. They’re here now. SNAP benefits are getting interrupted, and trust me, that’s the kind of thing that turns a stinky political move into a straight-up public health hazard.