🌀 Welcome to the Blame-Credit Carousel

The 2025 government shutdown has officially ended, and Washington D.C. is celebrating the only way it knows how: with a bipartisan parade of finger-pointing followed by a credit-grabbing sprint that would make an Olympic relay team jealous.

For three weeks, the federal government was locked in a budgetary cage match that made WrestleMania look like a Quaker meeting. Now, with the lights back on and the Smithsonian gift shops reopened, every politician from Capitol Hill to the crab shacks of Maryland is claiming they were the one who “saved America.”

Spoiler alert: they weren’t.

🧨 Act I: The Blame Olympics

The shutdown started like most D.C. dramas—with a budget disagreement, a few fiery press conferences, and a lot of people pretending to read 900-page bills.

• Republicans: “Democrats are holding the government hostage over woke spending and climate fantasies.”
• Democrats: “Republicans are trying to defund reality and replace it with tax cuts for billionaires and conspiracy podcasts.”
• Moderates: “We blame both sides. Also, we’re quietly Googling ‘how to move to Canada.’”
• Trump: Blamed everyone, then himself, then the media, then the deep state, then the ghost of Ronald Reagan.

According to https://www.factcheck.org/issue/government-shutdown-2/FactCheck.org, the shutdown was fueled by a mix of expired foreign aid funding, Project 2025 proposals, and a general desire to “dismantle the administrative state.”[3](https://www.factcheck.org/issue/government-shutdown-2/)

Meanwhile, DMV residents—actual federal workers—were left wondering if they should start driving Uber or sell their ergonomic chairs on Craigslist. In Silver Spring, furloughed employees formed a support group called “Shutdown & Sad,” which met weekly at a local Panera Bread to cry into their broccoli cheddar soup.

🧃 Act II: The Credit Parade

Once the shutdown ended, the same folks who couldn’t agree on lunch suddenly agreed they were all responsible for saving democracy.

• Speaker of the House: “This bipartisan deal proves we can govern.” (Translation: “I didn’t get fired.”)
• Senate Majority Leader: “We stood firm and protected American values.” (Translation: “We didn’t cave, we pivoted.”)
• Trump’s camp: “The shutdown ended because of pressure from the people—and Trump’s leadership.” (Translation: “We saw the polls.”)
• Local DMV reps: “Proud to have helped end the shutdown!”—despite voting “present” and spending most of the week at a crab boil in Annapolis.

Even the interns got in on the action, with one tweeting, “I stapled the final draft of the budget. You’re welcome, America.”

🧠 Act III: What We Learned (Spoiler: Nothing)

• Shutdowns are like bad Tinder dates: They start with high hopes, end with ghosting, and leave everyone broke.
• Blame is free, but credit costs votes.
• The DMV area suffers most: From furloughed workers in Alexandria to closed museums in D.C., the region took the brunt of the budget brawl.
• Project 2025 is the new villain: With Trump’s second-term agenda focused on “dismantling the administrative state,” expect more shutdowns, fewer regulations, and a lot of confused interns trying to Google “what is the administrative state?”[2](https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/trump-project-2025-and-the-dismantling-of-the-administrative-state/)

🧹 Act IV: The Aftermath

Now that the government is back in business (barely), expect a flood of legislation with names like:

• “The Patriot Budget Restoration Act”
• “The Freedom to Fund Freedom Act”
• “The We Totally Didn’t Cause This Shutdown Act”

None will pass, but all will look great on campaign flyers.

Meanwhile, the real winners? Late-night comedians, meme accounts, and anyone selling “I Survived the Shutdown” merch on Etsy. One Virginia Etsy shop reported a 300% spike in sales of mugs that say “Shutdown Survivor: I Didn’t Work, But I Still Got Blamed.”