13 Oct The Shutdown Isn’t Chaos. It’s a Strategy.

Shutdown or Strategy?

The U.S. government is now entering week two of its shutdown. Nearly 900,000 federal workers are furloughed or working without pay. Smithsonian museums are closed, the National Zoo is shuttered, and critical agencies like the NIH and CDC are running on fumes.

On the surface, it looks like chaos, a system breaking down under partisan deadlock. But there’s another lens worth considering: what if the shutdown itself is the plan?

Consider the moves:

• Weakening the federal workforce: Layoffs framed as “reductions in force” shrink agencies and make them less capable of oversight and regulation.

• Normalizing dysfunction: If Americans get used to a government that doesn’t work, it creates space for alternative centers of power.

• Concentrating control: The White House can position itself as the “only functioning actor,” offering executive power as the solution to a crisis that it quietly benefits from.

At the same time, the administration has escalated a trade war with China, threatening 100% tariffs after Beijing’s rare-earth restrictions. A weakened domestic apparatus combined with a manufactured external conflict is a classic way to consolidate authority.

So the question is: is this shutdown a failure of governance, or a deliberate test of how far the executive can stretch its power while the machinery of government grinds to a halt?

M2 Take

Moments of dysfunction can mask moments of design. Whether by intent or by accident, the current shutdown is shifting the balance between institutions and individuals. In times like these, power does not disappear. It moves.

The real test is whether we recognize the shift while it happens, or only after it is too late.