GOP strategist: Republicans are sitting on a live grenade in shutdown | Opinion

To the average American, a government shutdown may seem like just another example of D.C. dysfunction. Many may not even notice that there is even a shutdown: Social Security checks still clear. Mail still arrives. Planes still fly. Sure, there may be delays at the airport, but for the most part, life goes on like normal.

Politically, though, Republicans are suddenly waking up to a new reality. They are sitting on a live grenade. With Obamacare subsidies set to expire, millions of Americans are staring down skyrocketing health care premiums. That’s a nightmare heading into the midterm elections because you can’t boost health care costs on working families and still win their votes.

If Republicans had voted to repeal Obamacare when they had the chance, they wouldn’t be in this mess. They campaigned on it. They raised money on it. But when the time came, they blinked. Now, the scourge of rising health care costs is a problem that must be fixed.

So why shut down the government?

Because today, solving problems doesn’t win elections. Weaponizing them does.

A shutdown exposes Democrats for what they are: weak, uninspired and leaderless.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is forgettable. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer puts Americans to sleep. In a political environment driven by personality and spectacle, the Democrats are flatlining.

A shutdown also keeps the Jeffrey Epstein files from getting out. Need proof? Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to swear in Arizona Rep.-Elect Adelita Grijalva until after the shutdown ends. Grijalva — in case you were not following her special election - campaigned on being the final signature on a petition to force a vote to release the Epstein files. Coincidence? Maybe.

Then there is the deployment of the U.S. military in American cities. Our forebears fought a revolution, in part, to end precisely that abuse of power.

One of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence accused King George III of “keeping among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.” That was no passing complaint. It struck at the heart of the American Revolution: the conviction that free people cannot be governed by force, only by consent.

That’s why the Founding Fathers built the Bill of Rights as a fortress against tyranny.

The First Amendment secures the tools of liberty — speech, press, religion, assembly, and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances.

The Second and Third amendments protect that liberty from being crushed by military force.

Amendments Four through Eight guard against government abuse through law and power.

The Ninth affirms liberty extends beyond written rights, and the Tenth limits Washington’s power to the Constitution, reserving all remaining authority to the states and the people.

Yet here we are, watching a president exercise the very authority our ancestors bled to reject.

President Donald Trump’s recent Truth Social statement that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker “should be in jail for failing to protect ICE Officers” isn’t an act of law enforcement. It’s an assault on the rule of law.

This is just a guess on my part, but I’m pretty sure turning the U.S. military against American citizens and threatening to arrest elected leaders disqualifies Trump from a Nobel Peace prize

Meanwhile, the economy is unraveling.

Manufacturing is sliding. Prices are climbing. And thanks to Trump’s reckless tariffs, the United States is considering bailing out farmers because their crops are too expensive to sell.

Then there’s the growing government control over private business. TrumpRx, like Obamacare, marks another step in government-run health care - one where bureaucrats pick winners and losers, dictate prices and steer markets.

This isn’t conservatism. It’s MAGA socialism. And make no mistake, it’s no better than the socialism being pushed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Supporting socialism while wearing a red hat doesn’t make it less destructive or less toxic.

In the end, the ongoing shutdown is not about health care.

The shutdown is about chaos — flooding the system with so many crises at once that Americans grow distracted, weary and numb. When people tune out, it becomes easier to chip away at the foundations of the republic.

Americans will hear the talk of $2,000 stimulus checks from tariff revenues and think they are winning. Meanwhile, Americans will get a weaker economy; a bigger, more intrusive government; and limited freedoms.

Matt Wylie is a South Carolina-based Republican political strategist and analyst with over 25 years of experience working on federal, state and local campaigns.