CALIGULA’S SENATE

In recent months, the American lower middle class (those who, as a rule, love guns, go to church, and worry about the nation’s gynecological condition) have increasingly been thinking back to last November, when they filled in the bubble next to Trump and his satraps. Average Americans living paycheck to paycheck are struggling to make ends meet. The most vulnerable are behind on the rent, buying only basic groceries, while prescription drugs will have to wait for better days. A Serbian proverb, applied to the current situation in the U.S., might go like this: “Mother, let me be born rich so I can mess with the poor in the head!” The depth of Republican concern for the poor is nicely illustrated by the fact that 12.8 percent of the economically most vulnerable population haven’t received food stamps for six weeks, while the orange jester at the head of the state and his main donors are increasing their wealth for all it’s worth.

THE FULL BELLY DOESN’T BELIEVE THE HUNGRY

There is an unwritten rule that toward the end of every fiscal year politicians threaten to shut down the federal government and trigger a so-called “shutdown.” If Congress fails to approve the budget on time, funding for federal institutions is cut off. Since a new budget process was introduced in 1977, this has happened exactly twenty times. The wrangling in Congress usually lasts a few days, after which the government starts working again. Americans rarely paid much attention to these childish games—until Donald Trump came to power. Once Donnie discovered this new toy, he refused to let go of it.

At the start of his first term in 2018, the federal government was shut down for 35 days. He kicked off his latest reign with a 43-day shutdown. Federal employees went unpaid, the poorest lost their food assistance, air travel teetered on the brink of collapse… One hundred senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives kept collecting salaries for doing nothing, while the President was busy burning through 300 million dollars earmarked for renovating the East Wing of the White House. During the longest shutdown in U.S. history, forty million people in the SNAP social assistance program were left without benefits, which range from $190 a month for individuals to $450 for families.

To keep the social safety net (SNAP) functioning, about 99.8 billion dollars a year is needed. Wealthy Americans who sip colorful cocktails, play golf, and pop Viagra treat every tax dollar they pay as if it were labor pains from an imaginary pregnancy. In fiscal year 2024, Tesla reported profits of 2.3 billion dollars and didn’t pay a single dollar in federal income tax. Amazon ended the year with roughly 638 billion in total revenue and paid about 12.5 billion in taxes. In the same period, Meta brought in approximately 164.5 billion dollars in revenue, with around 62.36 billion in net profit, and set aside 8.3 billion for taxes. If we add Apple, ChatGPT and the most powerful banks to the list, the amount they pay (after all the breaks Trump pushed through for them) comfortably exceeds one hundred billion dollars a year—more than enough to fund food assistance for the most vulnerable Americans, if grasping politicians and insatiable billionaires didn’t decide to shut down the federal government whenever it suits them.

Why is the federal government shut down? That depends entirely on whom you ask.

Democratic senators have spent months pressuring Republicans to extend funding for health-care subsidies. This is a routine budget allocation under an existing law that has worked successfully for fifteen years. If it isn’t renewed by January 31, twenty-five million people will lose their health coverage, because their monthly out-of-pocket contribution would nearly triple. For example, a married couple earning up to $6,500 a month would have to pay $2,000 for health insurance. Democrats insist this is a basic obligation of the state toward its citizens—and the bare minimum of human solidarity. As independent Senator Bernie Sanders would say: “Try being a decent human being—even if you’re a Republican.”

Trump’s harlequins in Congress want this matter handled separately, outside the emergency funding package. In this sterile political tug-of-war, it became clear once again that this is no longer a clash of two parties, but of two completely opposed concepts of government. One side believes health insurance is a civil right, not a luxury; the other believes the main priority is cutting taxes and redirecting money from the middle class upward to the richest. While Capitol Hill turns into a stage for ideological dueling, the consequences fall on those who don’t take part in the show but finance it regularly. Air-traffic controllers and TSA agents worked without pay, single mothers waited in vain for food stamps… In homes across America, ordinary people worried about how much insulin will cost now, whether they can afford an oncologist, and whether their children will still get regular check-ups.

Needless to say, throughout all of this, lawmakers were paid on time: senators and representatives about $14,500 a month, and the President of the United States $33,300.

PETTY HUSTLING “AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL”

After 43 days of shutdown, nine Democratic senators voted to restart the federal government without any guarantee from the ruling party that it would resolve health-care subsidies. At first glance it looked as if Trump had found his “chosen ones,” but the real reason soon emerged.

On September 23, 2025, Democrat Adelita Grijalva was elected to represent Arizona in Congress. Because of the shutdown, she couldn’t be sworn in, so the balance of power in the House remained 219–213 in favor of the Republicans. To introduce an amendment, 218 signatures are required. Once Adelita officially became a congresswoman, Democrats—with help from a few disobedient Republicans—moved to hold a vote on opening the “Epstein Files,” which confirm Trump’s involvement in the pedophilia scandal. What at first seemed like an own goal was quickly reinterpreted as a solid counterattack, since the ball suddenly landed on the Republicans’ half of the field.

For a party that swears by “the will of the people,” Republicans have been extremely jumpy whenever that will needs to be tested at the ballot box. After bitter rivals won the New York mayor’s race and several governor’s seats, alarm bells started ringing. Once moderate Republicans increasingly point out that Donald Trump returned to power on the backs of sweet promises: cheaper food, lower cost of living, more money in people’s pockets… Nine months later, prices are rising, living standards falling, and the average American is staring at the calculator far more often than at the fridge. So when the president tells the cameras that “the economy has never been stronger,” he sounds like a used-car salesman trying to push a freshly repainted wreck with the odometer rolled back.

Behind the curtains of the lobbying “brothels” on Capitol Hill, Republicans received an offer they couldn’t easily refuse. Allegedly, if they reopen funding for health-care subsidies, Democrats will turn a blind eye after the Epstein Files are released. The dossier has long since been completed and “locked away,” because the ruling party and its leader refuse to publish it. Before the election, MAGA puritans promised to reveal every detail of this unprecedented scandal, but once they peeked inside the documents, they realized their own leader had been a frequent guest at Jeffrey Epstein’s debauched parties. With a helping hand from the Department of Justice and the FBI, Trump managed to keep the compromising documents secret—until the victims of these perverse abuses raised their voices and demanded the truth be made public.

If institutions truly did their job, not even his most faithful followers could launder the president’s filthy laundry. And so MAGA true believers find themselves facing a choice: lower taxes and public disgrace—or a higher budget for social silence.

THE MOVIE THEATER IS OPEN AGAIN

After weeks of shutdown, the federal government is back in operation. Planes are flying, civil servants are returning to their offices, food stamps are a little late but being paid. Politicians are announcing “the return of stability,” no one admits guilt, and everyone continues to blame the other side, hoping to divert attention from Epstein’s files.

That, however, didn’t quite work. Much as he tries to copy his political idol in Moscow, Donald Trump still hasn’t fully gagged the media, which continue to publish information about powerful pedophiles and their victims.

And then, as in every bad movie, came a great twist. Practically overnight, MAGA “moralists” decided—without much logic or political sense—to support the Democrats’ demand and make the Epstein Files public. The House and Senate rushed through an American lex specialis, which Trump signed with a heavy heart. If there had been any sincere intentions, things could have gone much faster and more simply, since the president could, under his existing powers, have instructed the Department of Justice to lift the restriction on the documents.

After this strange law was passed, America’s top justice official, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, announced that she would “follow the law and over the next thirty days redact information in order to protect the anonymity of victims.” Since “the goat” is now redacting “the cabbage,” we hardly need to wait thirty days to know that the redacted documents will contain no Trump, no Clinton, no Rothschilds, and nothing about the JP Morgan empire.

The whole circus is part of a backroom deal among leading politicians, under which evidence of the president’s pedophile activities will most likely be traded for health-care subsidies. Conservatives have once again shown that they respond far more quickly to blackmail than to any form of empathy. Principles? They disappeared the moment someone mentioned Donald’s bacchanals on Epstein’s island of depravity and shame. Ideology? They’ll go on preaching “moral” lessons about abortion and LGBTQ, while dutifully attending church services—with a gun on their hip.

America’s ship of corrupt hypocrites has not been repaired; it’s only been patched up for a while, so it won’t leak—until the next opportunity. The next shutdown will come as soon as someone calculates that it’s cheaper to stop the govermant than to help the poor, upset a donor, or—God forbid—annoy a dictator. In the meantime, the captain of the white ship in the White House sends this message:

Easy now, you fools, slow down, make way,
I’ll seat you all neatly and “save” you, one day.

The bigheads up top take the best, front-row places,
While down in my madhouse the lowest ranks roast in their braces.

They know less than nothing, and don’t want to see,
So let them all drive us—to lunacy.

Das Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools) – a satirical poem by Sebastian Brant, 1494.