The Shutdown Stripped the Emperor Naked

Well, folks — if you were still squinting to see whether the GOP had any shred of empathy left for ordinary Americans, the shutdown just switched the lights on and handed you binoculars. What we saw wasn’t pretty. Picture the Emperor — orange glow, long tie, and all — strutting through the ruins of a government he broke, shouting about “winning.” Spoiler: the only people winning are the ones who already own the board.

This shutdown didn’t just stall paychecks. It exposed something deeper, uglier, and wholly intentional. It revealed — again, for those in the back — that Trump and the Republican Party don’t give a damn about feeding children, protecting seniors, or making sure a single mother can afford insulin without auctioning a kidney. Their sympathy has the shelf life of unrefrigerated milk and the sincerity of a Mar-a-Lago “charity” check.

🧊 Starving the Poor, One Budget Stunt at a Time

When the shutdown hit, food assistance programs were the first to feel the frostbite. Millions of kids who rely on school meals, seniors who depend on SNAP, and working families already stretched thinner than the truth at a Trump rally — all left wondering if they’d be the next “acceptable casualties” of “fiscal responsibility.”

The GOP’s new motto might as well be: If you can’t eat, at least be patriotic while you starve. They’ll tell you “we can’t afford” to feed children — right before voting to extend tax loopholes for billionaires who name their yachts after Ayn Rand novels.

Meanwhile, the same politicians who clutch pearls about the sanctity of life seem weirdly unbothered by the sanctity of lunch.

💉 Healthcare: Just Another Word for Weakness

If the shutdown taught us anything, it’s that Republicans think healthcare is a privilege — like a country club membership or being born in the right zip code.

The Affordable Care Act subsidies? Frozen. Medicare claims? Delayed. Community clinics? Closed. But hey, the billionaire class stayed healthy — their portfolios fattened while actual Americans skipped prescriptions and rationed insulin like it’s 1930s bread lines all over again.

And still, the MAGA crowd cheers. They cheer while their own communities suffer, proudly holding signs that say “Keep government out of my Medicare.” It would be funny if it weren’t so horrifying — watching people defend the very system designed to grind them down.

💰 Power and the Rich: The Only Two Things They’ll Protect

If Trumpism has a moral compass, it points directly toward the nearest donor check. The party of “fiscal conservatism” managed to tank the economy while still giving tax cuts to billionaires, subsidies to fossil fuel companies, and defense contracts to whoever praises Dear Leader loudest.

And when ordinary Americans — teachers, nurses, postal workers — can’t pay rent because of their political theater, the GOP shrugs. After all, they don’t need votes from people who can’t afford gas; they’ve got super PACs for that.

Remember when they claimed to be the “party of the working man”? Turns out, they meant the man who works in private equity.

🏛 The Anti-American Party

Let’s call this what it is. When a government deliberately harms its own citizens to score political points, that’s not “patriotism.” That’s sabotage.

Republicans love to wrap themselves in the flag while dismantling everything that flag is supposed to represent: fairness, opportunity, compassion, democracy. They’ve replaced the stars and stripes with a corporate logo and a “Don’t Tread on Me” sticker made in China.

And yet — their followers stand in the cold, chanting “USA!” while the party they worship sells off the country piece by piece to the highest bidder.

👀 The Real Question

So here we are. The government reopened (for now), the billionaires got their tax breaks, and the rest of us are left with the bill — again.

But here’s the real question: Will their supporters finally see it?

Will they see the naked greed, the cruelty disguised as policy, the indifference to hunger, illness, and poverty? Will they notice that the so-called “patriots” in charge wouldn’t cross the street to save an American child from hunger unless there were a campaign donation waiting on the other side?

Or will they keep cheering, convinced that their suffering is “freedom,” that cruelty is “strength,” and that empathy is “socialism”?

Maybe it’ll take one more shutdown, one more empty fridge, one more denied insurance claim. Or maybe they’ll never see it — blinded by the orange glow reflecting off the gilded towers of the men who sold them a lie.

Either way, the rest of us saw it clear as day:

The shutdown stripped them bare — and there’s nothing underneath but greed, cowardice, and contempt for the very people they swore to serve.

If this doesn’t wake America up, nothing will — except maybe the sound of another “patriot” voting against their own dinner.

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Julie Bolejack, MBA

juliebolejack.com

mindfulactivist.etsy.com