By the time you read this, the federal government will be shut down. This kind of regularly scheduled uncertainty used to be something that embarrassed our political leaders and our nation. Now it’s just one more sign of our increasingly unstable and chaotic times.

President Trump’s political extremism has once again careened the nation to the brink of closure. This time he can’t even pretend to care.

For the millions of Americans who have grown numb to government dysfunction, resolving the current shutdown crisis only means resetting the countdown clock for the next crisis. Republican officials from Capitol Hill to the White House have abandoned even the pretense of serving their constituents.

Faced with such apathy, it’s no surprise that only a third of Americans still believe in their government. Trump couldn’t ask for a better opportunity to swipe even more authority from our nation’s gridlocked and widely hated legislative branch.

The federal government increasingly feels unable to handle even the basic task of keeping itself open, and voters see repeatedly that their leaders never learn the lessons of the last crisis. A majority of Americans

© The Hill