Why You Should Take The Government Shutdown Threat Seriously

Plus: The right-wing raw milk proselytizers are livid.

(Composite / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

The Labor Day weekend marks the start of a lot of things for Americans: the transition to autumn, the return of football season, the start of the school year, pumpkin spice lattes (don’t judge). In Washington, it also signals the approach of a potential government shutdown that, if left unaddressed, will cripple federal agencies and potentially cause financial havoc. 

The funding deadline is September 30, but Congress isn’t back until September 9, which will leave lawmakers just 15 legislative days to get things done. Recent congresses have averted shutdowns either by kicking the can down the road or in haphazard ways. Given the thin margins in the current Congress, all it would take to derail the funding process this month is a handful of ambitious legislative bomb-throwers or devoted obstructionists to effectively threaten or persuade party leadership. 

The task of keeping the lights on becomes a lot more daunting when you realize that spending toplines aren’t the primary factor in whether or not a funding bill makes it over the finish line. This time, the fight seems likely to center on a legislative priority for Donald Trump. 

Republicans in the House are politically exploiting this year’s deadline by demanding that any legislation that funds the government include the SAVE Act, a bill that would (redundantly) make it illegal for undocumented immigrants to vote. (It would also purge voter rolls and impose punishments for anyone who attempts to register a person to vote if that person hasn’t met new documentary requirements.) While the bill ostensibly addresses the (nonexistent) problem of illegal immigrants voting, its unstated purpose is to create a pretext for denying a Kamala Harris victory or justifying unusually weak performance from bad Republican Senate candidates in November.

House Republicans have already been clamoring to pass the SAVE Act, with the Freedom Caucus making the bill’s inclusion in any bill that funds the government a necessary condition for them to support that funding. House Speaker Mike Johnson is also advocating for it, but it’s unclear if he’ll go to war with the Democratic-held Senate to make sure it’s tacked on to the funding bill. 

Perhaps the most important person to weigh in on the issue is Trump, who has the ability to tank proposals for potentially era-defining conservative policy with a hostile whisper. Trump has already publicly advocated for shutting down the government, and not just if the SAVE Act isn’t included. On a podcast last week with former Fox News anchor Monica Crowley, he appeared to argue that Republicans should shut the government down if they don’t also get a border bill and a larger election security bill included: “If you can’t get the borders right, and you can’t get the elections right, they ought to close it up, just close it up and let it sit.”

When Crowley noted reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been working to keep the SAVE Act out of the funding negotiations, she framed it to Trump by saying, “I guess he wants illegals voting in huge numbers, which would likely mean your defeat.” This prompted the former president to more explicitly call for a shutdown:

I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it and if they don’t get it in the bill . . . Now, if they don’t get these bills, they should close it down, and Republicans should not approve it.  

Republican lawmakers listen intently to Trump’s comments in interviews and act accordingly. His explicit demand to shut the government down if the SAVE Act isn’t included in the spending bill will harden the resolve of conservatives already in agreement with him, and it could push those who might’ve been on the fence to come out in support of a SAVE Act shutdown.

Most lawmakers and pundits are confident that a continuing resolution will come through to fund the government past election day, at least. But those blithe spirits might be underestimating the outsize role that Trump is playing as he sows the wind; the House GOP majority being as thin as it is means that when he reaps the whirlwind, the results could be chaotic. 

But he doesn’t mind that, and the House Republicans most closely aligned with him don’t, either. Leaving aside the success of this year’s Ukraine-funding agreement—which some are speculating came too late—the 118th Congress has been exceptionally dysfunctional. The House has been beset with infighting and fixated on useless partisan messaging bills.¹

So how does this play out? Does Johnson pass a bill with the SAVE Act in it and then wait for the Senate to send him a clean bill back? What happens then? Does he risk angering Trump and his base right before the election? Frankly, the only glimmer of hope is that Johnson will see a need to protect his most vulnerable Republican colleagues by avoiding a shutdown and getting them out on the campaign trail instead of being stuck in Washington. The problem is that many congressional Republicans—and his party’s presidential nominee—just don't care. 

Even a broken clock

If you followed Press Pass’s coverage during the Democratic convention in August, you might recall that I spotted right-wing podcaster and activist Matt Walsh sneaking around the convention floor in a familiar disguise. 

Walsh likes to take strange stances on things like supporting “theocratic fascism” and advocating teen pregnancy. That makes him something of a hero to many of his followers. But a recent post in which he voiced a normal opinion outraged them. Walsh wrote on X:

Raw milk is disgusting. We live in a first world civilized society and people are actively choosing to consume milk riddled with E. coli and listeria. Pasteurization is not some evil sorcery. It just kills the dangerous bacteria you morons.

Like the bacteria that lives in unpasteurized dairy products, furious right-wing influencers, media personalities, troll accounts, and even one sitting Republican congressman grew in strength and number, eventually overwhelming Walsh’s post.² His replies were full of people extolling the magical healing powers of raw milk and condemning Walsh for suggesting it was anything but a powerful elixir.

Some could only imagine one reason the prominent reactionary Catholic pundit would take the stance he did: a global Jewish conspiracy. Because when I say this trend has spread across the right wing, I mean the whole thing.

The right-wing raw milk trend is a phenomenon that emerged fairly recently. According to a May report from the New York Times:

Health officials are warning Americans not to drink raw milk as bird flu spreads through American cows. But some media figures and influencers are misleadingly suggesting that the product is safe or even healthier than traditional milk. And sales are growing.

Commentators on sites like Infowars, Gab and Rumble have grown increasingly vocal about raw milk in recent weeks. They see the government’s heightened concerns about the dangers as overreach.

The Centers for Disease Control has detailed the risks of unpasteurized milk, which include the chance of catching a foodborne illness from bacteria like Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, or Salmonella, to name a few. Walsh subscribes to a lot of strange and dangerous beliefs, but his position on milk is one I’d encourage everyone to adopt.  

Labor every day

In the spirit of Labor Day, I wanted to share with you a recent interview from legendary Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto with the Wall Street Journal’s Sarah Spellings. The typically press-averse Yamamoto opened up to a surprising degree, describing his creative process and how taxing it is on his soul.

In a sort of grim way, this part of the interview made me laugh.

Is it ever hard for you to start working in the morning? How do you maintain that work ethic?

I feel like I’m in a prison. It’s a duty. 

Is there any joy from that? 

No [laughs]. Suffering, I like. 

I’ll admit I have a hard time telling if you’re joking, because you make such beautiful things out of the suffering.

Is it beautiful? [The people who wear it] are beautiful; that’s why it’s beautiful. In nature, the plants, the animals, the river, they are so beautiful. Human beings cannot create. 

That’s an interesting stance for a designer of so many years. 

It’s like a prison. 

Read the whole uplifting thing, and rest assured: Press Pass, for me, is more inspiration than incarceration. 

1. Even some of these have failed owing to how badly Johnson has managed his conference. 

2. It’s not the first milk-themed dustup on MAGA Twitter.