In four days, federal employees will suffer their first missed paycheck
since Trump’s border wall shutdown; it’s hard to say who will be worst
hit: the employees who are furloughed will never see that money (but who
may have been able to pick up some other work while they were off the
job to cover their bills); or the “essential” federal employees who’ve
had to show up for work every day without pay, but who will, someday,
get a paycheck to cover their forced labor.
In the latter group are 51,739 TSA “officers” (TSA screeners aren’t
cops, but they’ve adopted the “officer” honorific in a bid to secure
flyers’ obedience while they confiscate their apple-pie filling). Since
the shut-down began, TSA officials have insisted that screeners were not
staging “sick outs” (for example, to avoid daycare expenses by staying
home with their kids) and that the extra waiting time that passengers
were suffering through (53 minutes in Laguardia!) was the result of
heavier than usual travel.
But after Friday, TSA screeners will have to decide whether they want to
stay on the job without pay, and it’s a sure bet that lots of them will
stay home, and there’s not much the TSA can do about it. A TSA walkout
would cripple the nation’s businesses and strike directly at
higher-income Americans (that is, the people who supported Trump as he
used racist wall promises to secure the votes needed for a
two-trillion-dollar tax giveaway to the wealthy).
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Trump’s probably right that giving
in on the wall will lose him any chance of re-election as discouraged
racists stay home from the polls (as they had done historically, until
Trump gave them something to vote for), and deliver victory to Democrats
who have a small but meaningful chance of taxing the shit out of
looters and oligarchs. But the patience of looters and oligarchs – with
the exception of a few long-term thinkers like Charles Koch – is in
notoriously short supply. If Trump loses the racists, he won’t be able
to help the billionaires. But if he loses the billionaires, he won’t be
able to afford to court the racists.
TSA employees cannot continue to work without pay. Nobody can. That’s not politics, that’s simple fact. Even the most die-hard TSA enforcer has to eat and pay their bills.
Which means at some point in the near future the TSA will be unable to perform airport screenings and will declare a shutdown. After that, things can only go two ways:
1. Airports simply stop TSA screenings and waive passengers onto flights as if it was pre-9/11 America.
OR
2. Airports are totally shut down, citing security concerns.
#1 would demonstrate how airport screenings are security theater and utterly worthless, designed to keep us afraid. Airports operated perfectly for 50 years without forcing passengers to take off their shoes or surrender pocket knives & shampoo. Bypassing the scary body scanners & invasive blue gloves because we can’t pay the TSA would remind Americans this is all bullshit.
#2 would be an economic disaster. Average citizens would riot. Americans who commute via air would be forced into unemployment, and the airline industry itself would teeter on the edge of ruin. The brief airport shutdown of 2001 literally drove some regional airlines out of business. The ripple effect would impact hundreds of service industries including catering, hotels, car rental companies… the economic impact would be apocalyptic.
So which will it be?
Prepare for increasing weirdness if this shutdown isn’t resolved very soon.
Remember that it’s not just TSA as well. Agencies such as the US Marshals are not getting paid. Prisons and jails are not processing people. Applications and paperwork are on hold because nothing can be touched until the government reopens.
I think most of the white women who watch The Handmaid’s Tale think they identify with the struggle of the Handmaids when really they’re way more like the wives and the aunts.
Bold of you to assume most of the white people will become wives and aunts. If actual politics were a sign of anything, the lower class white people would be aspiring to those ranks when in reality they’re econo-people one crime away from the colonies/handmaid status/execution. And the ones who would support Gilead would be shocked at that. And would be the ones that crapped on Handmaids the most.
I mean, the wives and aunts sure seem unhappy with men being their superior but sure as hell love the luxury and power that comes with throwing Handmaids under the bus. White women do that all the time whether you want to admit it or sleep better at night.
How parents kick their own children out of the house for getting pregnant is beyond my understanding.
The notes on this post are heartbreaking and interesting at the same time. I feel like a lot of abusive behavior that women/mothers exhibit isn’t solely physical but the emotional and verbal aspect isn’t really talked about as much. Media likes to paint mothers as nurturing and caring but these notes definitely show the flip side.
