Causes of government shutdown

The immediate, obvious cause is Donald Trump and the Republican Party. There are no excuses for their unpatriotic willingness to  put party and politics above America.

For those willing to see more deeply than partisanship, it is obvious that one of the deeper causes is the long-term failure of the Democratic Party to make its case to the white working-class Americans who provide the base of support to Republicans and Donald Trump, to speak to them in terms they can understand about just why so many conservative ideas are wrong. Not to give up core principles or move to the right but to talk with them in Redspeak not Bluespeak.

Instead Democrats and progressives are content to just simply write off that whole side of the country as enemies without taking responsibility for their own failure to communicate. As I often do, I again cite the work of George Lakoff.

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