The question has been framed in the streets: is a government that impoverishes healthcare and nutrition, flouts the law, enriches its officials, imprisons babies, and kills its citizens worth the money it collects, much less the respect and obedience it demands?
Democrats have nothing to lose by shutting down the government to force the majority party to respond to these questions and the one that looms over all: what, if any, is the political and moral future of the US?
You know how Lemmy loves to bring up the trolley problem? Furloughing air traffic controllers for couple of weeks is less bad, than the effects of cutting Medicare to millions, and giving funds to ICE to brutalise America’s own citizens, which are far more consequential and far reaching, and will be felt by an entire society for generations to come.