Trump turns on America, declares we "need a good 'shutdown'"

Trump took Twitter — his preferred outlet for whining when he does not get his way — to complain about Congress’s new budget deal. As with nearly everything associated with his presidency, the spending bill was a political loss for him. He did not get funding for his border wall, and Democrats succeeded in protecting Obamacare and Planned Parenthood funding.

Trump blamed the compromise bill on Republicans’ failure to get 60 votes in the Senate, and then called on them to trigger the nuclear option — as they did earlier this year to force Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court — to lower the requirement for passing a bill to 51 votes.

And then Trump called for a shocking and damaging “solution” to his problem of insufficient support for his agenda, tweeting, “Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess!”

The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017

either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good "shutdown" in September to fix mess!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017

Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) pointed out that Trump is calling for a shutdown because he “got beat by Democrats” on the spending bill, and now wants “a government shutdown because he didn’t get his way.”

.@POTUS got beat by Democrats in spending bill. Now he's calling for a government shutdown because he didn't get his way. https://t.co/ZYHL7Kk8U6

— Joe Crowley (@JoeCrowleyNY) May 2, 2017

Just a few days ago, Trump was arguing that Democrats were threatening to shut down the government (they weren’t) and said to do so would be “terrible.” He was right in his characterization of the effect of a shutdown, which happened in 2013 when Republicans threw a tantrum about President Obama.

Thanks to the Republican shutdown in 2013, 800,000 federal employees ended up out of work without being paid, while more than a million other employees had their paychecks delayed indefinitely. Millions of veterans and their families did not receive their benefits.

The delay of payments rippled through the economy, as mortgages, rents, utility bills, grocery shopping, and other spending was curtailed. The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimated that the shutdown resulted in 120,000 fewer private sector jobs being created.

Departments described as “nonessential” were closed, including national parks, the National Zoo, and NASA. The many businesses that rely on those parts of the government were also affected.

Standard & Poor’s estimated that the 2013 shutdown cost the United States a total of $24 billion, $1.5 billion dollars per day as the Republicans in Congress stamped their feet.

Republicans also lost the public relations fight over the shutdown. Polling showed that 81 percent of Americans disapproved of the shutdown, 86 percent said it damaged America’s image around the world, and 53 percent blamed Republicans for the debacle.

And that was without a Republican president whose party controls both chambers of Congress.

Trump’s petulant demand fit his pattern of demonstrating a disdain for a representative democratic republic.

Trump would like to rule America without any questions asked or any resistance offered, and if he can’t have his way, he wants his own party to shut down the government, regardless of the damage it would inflict on Americans.