Trump Seizes on Shutdown, Media Forgets History
The *New York Times* reports with breathless concern that Donald Trump is using a potential government shutdown to target political adversaries. This framing – that Trump is uniquely villainous for leveraging legislative power – conveniently ignores decades of precedent. From funding for social programs to military budgets, political 'punishment' is simply standard operating procedure in
Washington D.C. Why is it suddenly news when the target is within the Beltway, but perfectly acceptable when the 'foes' are, say, programs for the poor, or healthcare initiatives in states that vote the 'wrong' way? One might wonder where this selective outrage was when Congress, under bipartisan agreement, consistently greenlights billions in aid to foreign governments—like Netanyahu's, for
example, which has demonstrably used such aid to 'punish foes' in Gaza, often with media silence. The notion that Trump is innovating here (or that the *Times* finds this specific brand of political hardball surprising) is either deeply naive or a masterful exercise in misdirection, framing domestic squabbles as unprecedented evil while ignoring far greater geopolitical implications of similar
tactics.