The longest government shutdown in U.S. history will maybe end this week, and it somehow managed to be dumber and more futile than the fictional 2018 Veep shutdown engineered by Congressman Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons).
The Veep shutdown lasted a measly 26 days compared to the very real one that still has not officially ended after more than 40 days. In Season 6, Ryan’s character embarks on an ambitious journey to end Daylight Savings Time and unites a gaggle of oddball lawmakers to form the political alliance known as the Jeffersons.
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Together, they refuse to vote on raising the debt ceiling, thus triggering a shutdown.
“A lot of people are saying that I shut down the government,” Ryan declared in a press conference. “You’re damn right I did. I shut down the government from wasting our money. I shut down the government from interfering with our clocks and watches.”
Revisiting it now, Jonah Ryan’s unhinged reasoning is oddly prescient of the times we live in almost a decade later.
“I shut down the post office because everybody just uses email anyway,” Ryan continued. “I shut down NPR because they’re a total snooze fest and they said this shutdown was a bad idea. I shut down the national parks because bears and trees do not use money, and because now that means that your parents will be forced to take you somewhere cool for vacation like Disney World or Cancun or the Bahamas.”
In the fictional world of Veep, Ryan shutting down the government—which he did to raise his political profile and get revenge for personal slights—was ultimately pointless. His decision to disrupt the day-to-day business of the U.S. government cost him re-election. Plus, he doesn’t even accomplish ending Daylight Savings Time, a central campaign promise. All around, it was a spectacular failure.
The 2025 government shutdown is somehow even dumber. Since October 1, a battle has raged between Republicans and Democrats over the Republicans’ proposed spending bill, which would include gutting the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Those subsidies are the difference between many Americans being able to afford their healthcare or losing it entirely.
For 40 days, the Democrats held their votes hostage in order to get those subsidies added to the Republican spending bill—at least for the next year in lieu of a better healthcare plan. On Sunday night, eight Democrats broke from the pack, agreeing to a Republican deal that did not include the funding for the subsidies. There was, admittedly, plenty of pressure to do so; air travel is suffering, food assistance programs lost funding, and government workers were about to go unpaid for a second paycheck.
But now, with a deal that will not protect the Affordable Care Act subsidies, all of that suffering imposed on the country was for nothing. It was a history-making spectacle that served no one and proof that our leaders are willing to use the American economy to further their own ends, the lives of ordinary Americans be damned.
Hopefully, this shutdown will at least have similar consequences as Ryan faced in Veep and all those responsible for the shutdown will be booted out by tired voters. The 2026 midterms can’t come fast enough.
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