When Harris Faulkner blurted out “This sounds like a bribe,” she was calling out theater — and Fox’s Peter Doocy was doing what real reporters should do: naming the tactic. Doocy walked viewers through how elements inside the Trump White House openly discussed using a shutdown as leverage to force long-overdue cuts to a bloated federal apparatus. Americans fed up with Washington should cheer a fight that strips power from distant bureaucrats and returns it to taxpayers and families.
The real story is not cruelty; it’s strategy. As reporting shows, officials like Mick Mulvaney and conservative allies viewed a shutdown as a blunt but honest way to prove the country can operate without every redundant federal position and program, and to push through serious budget reductions. That is the conservative argument in practice — smaller, smarter government that lives within its means and stops buying votes with other people’s paychecks.
Mark Meadows didn’t mince words, and neither should we: the swamp will fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo because the status quo feeds a machine that benefits them, not the American worker. Meadows and other Freedom Caucus conservatives made clear they preferred principled cuts to another trillion-dollar spending binge wrapped in Washington platitudes. Those who call this reckless are often the same ones who cheer when Washington rigs the system for career bureaucrats and lobbyists.
Make no mistake — a shutdown is messy, and the media will scream, but history shows the blowback is often temporary and the bloating of federal government is permanent unless someone pushes back. Conservatives have spent decades shouting that too much of our lives and money are controlled from a D.C. cubicle; a standoff that forces Congress to confront waste is a tactic worthy of use. If Democrats and feckless Republicans prefer optics over reform, then let them own the blame while conservatives keep fighting for accountability.
The truth the mainstream refuses to admit is simple: the federal machine grew by design, and it will not shrink by itself. Every program protected, every agency spared, is another dollar siphoned from the paychecks of working Americans and another incentive for Washington to expand. Conservatives should stop apologizing for wanting a leaner government and start demanding budgets that reflect the priorities of taxpayers, not the comforts of a permanent political class.
Now is the time for patriots to stand tall and back leaders who will not flinch. Call out the performative outrage, expose the defense of the swamp for what it is, and insist on real cuts that restore common-sense federal limits. This fight isn’t about playing games with livelihoods — it’s about reclaiming American self-government from a Washington that has forgotten who it serves.
