Congress is frozen. Would you like to force quit?

Well, I was going to tell some jokes about the government shutdown, but it’s already back up and running.

Did you try turning off the government then turning it back on again?

Don’t get me wrong, government shutdowns are generally a negative, and it is definitely a good thing that certain essential government employees will continue getting paid, but I was kind of excited to give suggestions as to how to survive a government shutdown. As we all know, when the government is shut down, absolutely no laws apply– I was going to recommend fun activities like “stealing all of the dogs,” and “defying gravity,” and “purchasing birth control as a woman.”

Honestly, I’m pretty frustrated with the Democrats right now. Yes, we reauthorized funding for CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, but the we decided to put the DREAMers lives on hold and hope that McConnell would follow through with his promise to find a solution before February 8th. No big deal, right? It’s not like McConnell is known for completely backing off of his word for political gain, or anything. Maybe THIS time Lucy will let us kick the football!

It’s the Great Political Catastrophe, Charlie Brown!

That being said, I think it’s certainly possible that Trump just doesn’t know what CHIP is, and that’s why he wouldn’t sign it off on funding it. Ok, I’m sorry, I realize that’s obvious. Let me clarify: I think that with all of this talk about “chip,” he got angry because he thinks we’re talking about the snack. Over in Congress, everyone is talking about reauthorizing CHIP for kids, and he obviously doesn’t want to do that, because if you legalize giving children chips, that means less chips for him. Which is fair, he loves chips.

When I made the choice to become a Political Science major, it was because I enjoyed debating controversial topics. Somehow, I didn’t think that “helping sick children” and “ not deporting people who have lived here their entire lives” would become controversial, but here we are, in the Cartoon Supervillain Administration. If we’re not careful, we’ll have another government shutdown in two weeks because the Republicans tied Ruth Bader Ginsburg to a set of train tracks.

And you know, the despite the fact that the Republicans (particularly Trump) were the ones that overturned DACA and refused to reauthorize the originally bipartisan CHIP, they were trying their darndest to get #SchumerShutdown and #DemocratShutdown trending on social media.

Obviously it’s a little bit ridiculous to blame the other person for wanting to fix a problem that you created. That would be like if your older sibling broke your mom’s favorite vase and then they tattled on you for breaking it after you offered to help them buy a new one. But even if #DemShutdown wasn’t the 17th dumbest thing I’ve heard in the news this month, let’s just say it actually was reasonable to blame the Democrats for the shutdown. Yeah, how dare they do everything in their power to ensure that seven-year-olds get to keep their health insurance! Those disgusting, dirty politicians! And ANOTHER THING: how DARE they try to ensure that essential military personnel continue to get paid during the shutdown!

…Not that it matters to his base. Here I am, telling jokes into the void.

But my absolute favorite part of the government shutdown were the absolutely outstanding photos of The President working his hardest during the government shutdown. They’re hilarious.

I love this one because you know that in his head, President Big Rig is pretending he’s walking away from a bunch of explosions like they do in action movies. Either that, or Scaramucci is literally hiding behind the pillars and making the sounds for him because he is willing to do anything to get his old job back. Plus, Trump just looks so stoic. I don’t know if he’s aiming to look like Bruce Willis or Winston Churchill, but someone has got to break it to him that the trucker hat just ruins it.

And in this photo, we see rock-solid evidence that not only does no one in the White House know what it looks like when people are getting work done, they also have no idea what it looks like when people are actually having a good time.

Ah, and this one. This one is truly an instant classic. I’m honestly not even upset about it. We already knew that the president was lazy, and we already knew that his White House staffers were terrible at their jobs, but they couldn’t even get a decent photographer with any idea on how to stage a photo. I feel like he was smiling at first before the photographer said, “No, man, it’s a shutdown, you gotta look like Bruce Willis.” They could have tossed some blank pieces of paper on the desk, maybe even a folder that said “Top Secret” on the front, and that honestly would have been more believable than this work photo. Instead, he awkwardly has his fingers curled around the front of the desk while it looks like he’s on hold waiting to speak with the manager at Bath and Body Works.

So what did we learn from all of this? I don’t know. Just that everything is still on fire and that the government is being run by middle schoolers. Maybe I’ll have an answer in a few months once I’ve completed my bachelor’s. I think that’s how it works, anyway.