I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
—Grover Norquist, Republican political boss

The whole thing is completely stupid, especially when you consider that if you want the wall, shutting down the government does the exact opposite of what you claim you want. Time estimates that the cost of the shutdown will be higher than the cost of the damn wall. Shutting down the government has put immigration judges on furlough, letting undocumented migrants avoid facing their day in court. Shutting down the government is making large portions of our national security apparatus work for free, making our country less safe.

But fucking Mexicans, amirite?

This IS the coup. Please everyone call me a chicken little if the government shutdown ends, but I fear it never will. Shutdown the government, furlough the military, then start the emergency declarations to fund/run needed functions. That'll become the new normal. It's a coup of inches and he's got years to figure out how to prevent an election from affecting him. It won't be until there's no new presidential elections, or they're clearly shams, that people will really start saying wait a minute… The wall is just a pretense, an excuse.