I see and partially agree with what you mean, but I don’t agree that those actions don’t so anything. Partially it’s having worked for change in Washington and walked away burnt out, that I know how much DC is a bubble that has cascading impacts to everyone.

In some ways yes shutting the government down means services don’t happen, but you are wrong about not getting paid. While they aren’t paid at the time, they have regularly gotten back pay after the shutdown. Some lower level may quit anyway, but often the government job is just to good at a high GS level to really give up, due to the healthcare and retirement. So it’s not easy, but it’s a paid time off.

The real impact is as you mentioned that services aren’t processed. This has a ripple impact across the world due to trade, and finance markets. This in turns puts pressure on politicians to compromise, as a slowing of the economic makes everyone upset, and that is a lever.

So it’s about finding levers that are more than show, like this current “shutdown” as many agencies have already been funded prior to this and the stopgap is likely to get passed shortly, but without longterm DHS funding. Schumer calling it a win, is just for show. DHS will continue, when they could have put their foot down and stopped everything.

Where I agree with you is that the ideal of the conservative movement is to make government small and privatize it. They can only do so much though, as the US federal government is a behemoth, and even what DOGE did–while stuipid, and short sided–barely impacted the overall long term budget. If they were really after shrinking it, they’d cut the military. DOGE claimed they cut around 55 billion, but the senate just passed a 1200 billion dollar budget. And remember the US GDP is 31 Trillion, and the 1.2 Trillion wasn’t all of the budget, just most of it.

I don’t think we need it all, but changes and improvement, especially in governments, tend to be slow and deliberate. Rash acts cause disruptions which have profound impacts, and we’ll see those.

All of which is to say yes, I agree those actions don’t seem like much, but they have more impact than you think.

How about standing for something and sticking to it. One of our senators could filibuster, much like Strom Thurmond did for 24 hours during the civil rights movement.

Or even if you shut the government down for the ACA, you get what you were asking for rather than giving in when it “looks” like you have won the propaganda battle.

Basically they need to put inspiring acts of policy in front of rational reasoned policy, as no one think rational and reasonable is going to work with the Republican Nazis.

“The best they can do is shoot the guy in the back?” That’s not the voice of some liberal commentator. That’s what a homeland security officer told me this weekend, one of over half a dozen who have reached out to express their alarm over the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and beyond.

I’ve listened to the stories and the beefs of immigration officers in Minneapolis across the country, and to a person, they all blame the shooter, one of their own. The major media is stuck on framing the killing of Alex Pretti as some national and partisan battle, highlighting Republicans breaking ranks, the NRA protesting, MAGA wavering, and Chuck Schumer doing whatever he’s doing, but no one is really capturing what the federal law enforcement officers on the ground are thinking. The truth is that they’re fed up and have been for weeks.

They paint a picture that is more Police Academy (or even Reno 911!) than a Gestapo on the march. Yes, they agree that Washington is a huge problem and are uncomfortable with the mission creep that is taking them away from actual immigration enforcement. But internally? Theirs is also a story of gung-ho 19-year-olds, drunken stakeouts, and senior officers disappearing into meetings and all of a sudden needing time off.

…

An ICE agent was even more critical. “Yet another ‘justified’ fatal shooting … ten versus one and somehow they couldn’t find a way to subdue the guy or use a less than lethal [means],” the agent said. “They all carry belts and vests with 9,000 pieces of equipment on them and the best they can do is shoot a guy in the back?”

…

As the meetings are held, the ICE agents and others I’ve talked to say the government versus terrorists narrative is having a tangible (and negative) impact on the ground.

“Lots of people are freaking out,” one ICE agent told me. “Agents are getting seriously paranoid, afraid of being targeted by ‘retaliators.’”

Several agents described receiving briefings about retaliatory threats to ICE inspired by the Minneapolis shooting. “Guys take it really serious, like we are fighting insurgents,” as if Minneapolis is Baghdad, an ICE officer said.

Though all of the federal agents I’ve spoken to this weekend support immigration enforcement, they indeed see the Minneapolis operation as something else entirely — an open-ended counterinsurgency in a faraway land and under an out-of-touch leadership in Washington more concerned with optics than immigration.

“This is a no-win situation for agents on the ground or immigration enforcement overall,” a Border Patrol agent said in the private group chat shared with me.

He closed on a plaintive note: “I think it’s time to pull out of Minnesota, that battle is lost.”

The number of lawmakers not seeking reelection for their seat this cycle — 30 Republicans and 23 Democrats, according to a Ballotpedia tracker updated Dec. 23 — has drawn comparisons to the 2018 midterms, when 37 Republican lawmakers departed, compared to just 18 Democrats, and Democrats saw a blue wave of wins.