Government Shutdown: Pushing Back On The Republican Narrative

On the first day of the government shutdown, I received an email from Alabama Senator Katie Britt. The subject line read, “SHUTDOWN DAY 1: Democrats Hold Nation Hostage for Transgender Surgeries & Illegal Aliens.” The email blames Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats for shutting down the government. At the end, the email asks for feedback, offering a three-choice survey. The last option: “Democrats are justified in shutting down the government until Republicans agree to fund their leftwing priorities regardless of the cost to taxpayers.” The italics are mine.

Seven days in, still rankled by the email, I started typing and sent the following reply to her office.

Senator Britt,

I am responding to your recent email about the government shutdown. While I do not support the adverse financial impact on government employees, I feel equally that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are not negotiating with Democrats in good faith. Not passing the Continuing Resolution enables the Democrats to alert Americans to the Republican no-negotiation governing strategy.

President Trump's inflammatory rhetoric about Democrats — a recent Truth Social post calling Democrats “the party of hate, evil, and Satan” — his cuts targeting programs that disproportionately affect Democrat constituencies, and plans to lay off rather than furlough Federal workers scream that Republican claims of respectful negotiation are false.

Also, I find the subject line of your email, “Democrats Hold Nation Hostage for Transgender Surgeries & Illegal Aliens,” deeply offensive because it is both false and inflammatory.

I wonder if you know anyone who is transgender and whether you have heard their life experience and the challenges of gender dysphoria. If not, I suggest you have some heartfelt and open-minded conversations. Transgender folks are equally part of the creation of God and, as such, worthy of dignity and respect — not the hateful rhetoric and punitive actions employed by the Trump administration.

Whether transgender athletes should compete on school teams and what rights parents have to determine the medical care for their children are topics for thoughtful policy discussions. Any policies must begin with acceptance of the humanity of transgender people, who are endowed by their Creator with the same rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence, including the right to self-identify.

The second topic in the subject line of your email, “illegal aliens,” is equally inflammatory. During the presidential campaign, Trump claimed his administration would focus on “murderers, killers, gang members, and rapists” in the country illegally. In practice, masked ICE agents have targeted anyone appearing Hispanic, often brutally capturing and detaining American citizens. The recent raid of a Chicago apartment building in the middle of the night, terrorizing the inhabitants and ransacking apartments, is one of the daily examples of a terror campaign that is writing another dark chapter of the American story.

In a recent ruling addressing ICE overreach, U.S. District Judge William Young, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, wrote, “To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history, we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.”

Despite all these attacks on American democracy, you and your Republican colleagues in Congress remain silent. Something needs to break the Republican fever dream of an all-powerful unitary executive — dare I say king — with a subservient single-party legislature. Perhaps this government shutdown will force you and your colleagues to consider country before party.

Respectfully, (always respectful)