America's shutdown indifference

Why most Americans aren't wailing about the government shutdown

Washington, DC.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

I have two memories of the federal government shutdown of 2013. One is not actually mine but my wife's. At the time she was employed as a waitress at a restaurant in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. During those 16 days she waited on hundreds of furloughed government employees, in many cases during what would otherwise have been their ordinary working hours.

The vast majority of these public servants left no tips regardless of the size of their bills, some of which were substantial. Many of them instead wrote notes politely explaining that they wished they could contribute a gratuity but given the circumstances they were sure everyone would understand. Perhaps they were under the impression that my wife and her co-workers, most of whom were African-American women who had made the long commute from over the river in Anacostia in order to serve novelty drinks and gigantic appetizer platters to these selfless officials, had Ted Cruz's cell number and could bring the whole thing to a halt if they so chose. Or maybe they were just being the lazy, entitled, self-aggrandizing make-work goons millions of Americans imagine them as.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.