As I was traveling in Europe this past week, the one question I was asked most often was how our government could shut down. People there seemed genuinely flummoxed. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that should happen in the United States of America.
They were also, needless to say, nervous. We came remarkably close to starting a world financial panic, the effects of which would easily have extended across the Atlantic and beyond.
When asked about the shutdown, I invariably responded that I was sure our more moderate Republicans leadership was working as hard as they could behind the scenes to come up with some graceful exit. The only available strategy for them, as far as I could see, would to be to get the Obama administration to cede some minor point of little consequence, so that the Republican leadership (which now clearly fears its own extreme wing) would have some face-saving way to declare “victory”.
This seems to be exactly what has happened, which is not surprising. But what seems most amazing to me is the thinking of the Republican extreme right in triggering the shutdown in the first place. As far as I can tell, they seemed to be following what might be called the toddler strategy: “If you don’t give me what I want, I’m going to hold my breath until I die. After I die, you’ll be sorry!”