Sorry, We're Closed

At the stroke of midnight this past Monday, I received a notification from the New York Times that the US government had officially shut down. Having paid only marginal attention to the debates (can they really be called that?) over the past few weeks, I was far from alarmed. So, like millions of Americans, I just went to bed.

The next morning I set about trying to figure out exactly what the implications of a government shutdown are. Before, it was too abstract a concept to really wrap my head around. Governments are as much about tacit objects, like people and buildings and organizations, as they are about concepts and theory. How do you shut down a democracy? What exists in its place?

Existential crisis aside, I started to understand that my thoughts and reactions were coming from a place of tremendous privilege. I could stand on the sidelines, deriding Congress for its inherent inability to function, because I thought I wasn’t going to face any direct consequences. On top of that, I was resigned to the fact that in a short time, this mess would be fixed, and life would resume as normal.

The reality is that there are now millions of Americans who got up on Tuesday and wondered things like if their furlough would mean barely scraping by, if the state would be willing to assist in welfare payments, if their families could be fed after those on food assistance via the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children is suspended.

The arts and humanities have much to lose as well. The National Endowment for the Arts will constrict grant distributions, cutting off our arts organizations from crucial funds. Boarded up museums, parks and zoos will impact businesses and harm the economy.

It’s clear this effects everyone, some more than others, and that a shutdown for even a few days has a ripple effect. So go ahead, tweet the most derisive one-liners you can in mockery of our defunct government. But do so with a grain of salt.