If the looming potential of a federal government shutdown seems familiar, that’s because it’s the third time so far this year, and fifth in recent memory. There’s actually a Wikipedia entry for “Government Shutdowns of 2018” at this point.
Despite consistent media poll numbers clearly indicating the public distaste for shutdowns, Capitol Hill lawmakers continue to push negotiations to the deadlines over and over again in order to get last-minute concessions. If there is national anger at Washington for myriad reasons and rationales, it stands to reason that the on-again/off-again shutdown rhetoric is a contributing factor, and one that crosses party lines.
It’s time to truly evaluate the usage of this tactic as a communications and governing tool.
When you shut down the federal government, you shut down a lot more of America than most think.
There are the obvious news media hot spots: Washington, federal government buildings in your hometown, military bases, national parks. But something that hit home when I worked alongside Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, while we navigated the 2013 government shutdown is that there is significant and underappreciated collateral damage: the sandwich shops across from the military base, the contractors who rely on the federal building’s workforce, etc.
Worse still, every time a shutdown is raised as a possibility to prepare for, military base brass and federal agency officials are compelled to spend time and resources to map out contingency plans — burning days’ worth of taxpayer money nationwide just because elected officials in Washington couldn’t heed the calendar. Over a recent coffee, I heard from a friend and colleague about PowerPoint presentations, memos, and emails circulated over one single military installation to outline a shutdown protocol and staffing plan. That exercise is repeated hundreds of times across the country every time we come down to the wire.
So why do shutdowns continue to be a tool in the negotiating toolbox? Because they must clearly work with a small, active political constituency. To be sure, there are many Americans who see this as an effective way of bringing some issues to the forefront at critical junctures, and who have no problem with this tactic. How do we square this circle?
In the interest of clear communications and being transparent about goals and methods, we should bring shutdown rhetoric away from the Beltway rhetoric and into the election process. One suggestion would be to begin asking candidates whether they support government shutdowns (Spoiler alert: Nearly none will say, ‘Yes’) with a follow up of, “Under what circumstances would you support shutting down the government?”
This will allow for a clearer cause-and-effect relationship between the strategy and the support. If a candidate says that immigration reform, gun control, or pro-life priorities are something they are willing to draw a line in the sand for, then we can come into the Hill negotiations with eyes wide open. And candidates can say, “The people of my state put me here to do this,” more than they can by attaching their plan to talking points.
In the 1980s movie “War Games,” an enormous mainframe computer named “Joshua” (long story) simulates multiple nuclear weapon scenarios to determine the winner, who comes out ahead in such conflicts. The computer’s conclusion? “Strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”
Given the regularized poll numbers tracking how Americans disagree with government shutdowns as a tactic, in these political equivalents of war games, most voters seem to agree with Joshua. Then again, maybe they don’t, and we should all come to terms with this reality of just how far the political polarization of America has come.
The wisest path forward would be to either: (A) reinforce the stakes through clarifying the political support for Capitol Hill legislators who draw a consistent line between their principles and their postures; or (B) disarm by attempting to take the tool out of the toolbox and return to more basic forms of negotiating ploys.
Then again, we can always just whip out the chessboard.
Matthew Felling is a former print/TV/radio journalist, media critic, and U.S. Senate communications director, now serving as a public affairs and crisis consultant with Burson-Marsteller in Washington.
