Government Agencies Blame 'Radical Left' For Shutdown

Screenshot of TSA Social Media Post — Source: Screenshot from Threads / Screenshot from Threads

Here’s a question: What’s the best way to tell that a person — let’s say, a child — is lying?

There are a few ways, actually? They fidget. They look everywhere but in the eyes of the person they’re lying to. Their stories change the more they tell them. They stutter and stammer while searching for something that might plausibly resemble the truth.

But one of the biggest telltale signs that someone is full of it is — they repeat the lie as often and as passionately as possible in desperate hopes that they might actually convince people it’s the truth. And that, my friends, is the approach President Donald Trump, his administration, and the rest of the MAGA-fied GOP are taking in their effort to pin the government shutdown on the Democratic Party and the “radical left.”

Don’t get it bent up: Republicans and Democrats are always finger-pointing at each other when government policies prove to be foolish or government bodies prove to be ineffectual and incompetent. But it’s one thing to play the political blame game; it’s something else entirely to use taxpayer money to ensure every federal government agency is singing the same tune, which, in this case, is basically a rendition of Milli Vanilli’s “Blame It On the Rain,” entitled, “Blame It On the Radical Leftist Democrats Who, Somehow, Have More Power Than The Republican-Controlled Congress, Supreme Court, And Presidency.” (It’s a very long working title that perfectly matches the lengths the Trump administration will go through to evade accountability and reality.)

If you happen across the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website, the first thing you see is a single red pop-up that reads, “The radical left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.”

A banner lining the top of the Department of Justice’s website reads, “Democrats have shut down the government.”

The Department of Agriculture’s website claims: “Due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.”

According to Politico, the Small Business Administration circulated a template for automated out-of-office emails for furloughed employees that reads, “I am out of office for the foreseeable future because Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill (H.R. 5371) leading to a government shutdown that is preventing the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from serving America’s 36 million small businesses.”

Politico also noted that it reached out to the White House for a response to all of this, but, instead, got an automatic reply warning of delays to press inquiries due to “staff shortages resulting from the Democrat Shutdown.”

“As you await a response, please remember this could have been avoided if the Democrats voted for the clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government open,” the automated response continued.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) posted a since-deleted message to its social media accounts that reads, “Beginning midnight October 1st, funding for much of the Federal Government will have expired due to the partisan politics of left-wing politicians.”

Sure, TSA can’t explain why a mini-bottle of shampoo needs to be confiscated at check-in because it could be used to hijack an airplane, but the agency is perfectly adept at explaining to the public that radical, leftist Democrats “put politics before the well-being of our country,” and that’s why the government shutdown on Trump’s watch for the second time in two presidencies.

According to NPR, similar messages were received by staff at the Departments of the Interior, Commerce, Labor, State, and Treasury.

Mind you, this all comes after Trump, Vice President JD Vance, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and Republican congressional leaders have shouted from every rooftop they can find that the shutdown happened because Democrats wanted to give free healthcare and tax subsidies to “illegals.”

Here’s what I wrote about that previously:

In reality — a thing this administration waved bye-bye to the second Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20 — Democrats released a budget proposal that seeks to extend the ACA subsidies before they expire at the end of the year, and reverse Medicaid cuts in the tax cut and domestic policy law signed by the president in July. There’s not a single line in the language of the proposal that would allow for undocumented migrants to receive free healthcare, just as there is nothing in existing law that would allow for that.

Y’all, this is the way propaganda works. You don’t just repeat the lie as often as possible; you make sure that every government entity is also spreading the lie in writing everywhere you look. You make sure the only government-provided information available is the disinformation that reinforces the lie.

Oh, and, by the way, it’s probably illegal, or, at the very least, unethical as hell.

From Politico:

“It’s a coordinated effort in the executive branch to have all the agencies push Congress to get the Democrats to cave, and they’re using their employees and putting pressure on their employees,” said Richard Painter, a longtime critic of Trump and a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who studies government ethics. “They’re not telling the employees to call the Democrats in Congress and stop the shutdown, but this appears to be a lobbying effort targeting Congress.”

Painter specifically pointed to the Anti-Lobbying Act, which prohibits the use of appropriated funds for lobbying activities designed to “support or defeat legislation pending before Congress.” He said the messages also “push the boundaries” on the Hatch Act, which limits political activities of federal employees who work with federally funded programs, but stops short of an overt violation.

He said the administration’s statements could violate the Hatch Act if they start referring to campaigns or the 2026 election.

Donald Sherman, the executive director and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — which has also regularly been critical of the Trump administration — said while the messages don’t “technically” violate the Hatch Act, they overstep a legal obligation for agency employees to “provide nonpartisan service to their constituents.”

“A government shutdown causes stress for the public regardless of political affiliation; it is wildly inappropriate for agency leadership to politicize the situation and blame political enemies,” he wrote in a statement.

Look, lying and spreading propaganda is all Trump has ever done, but even he has never done it like this. This is the kind of Nazi sh*t we are always talking about regarding this administration, while the administration and the rest of the MAGA world have dismissed as dangerous “leftist” rhetoric that has been to blame for division and violence.

In truth, this administration is the epitome of the division and violence they rail against; we’re just calling it out with receipts.

What Does A Government Shutdown Mean For Black People?