The United States government shutdown drags on, marking a pivotal moment in America’s fiscal and constitutional history. President Donald Trump, the negotiator-in-chief, isn’t blinking. He’s swinging the axe at bloated, Democrat-run bureaucracies that have taken trillions from hardworking Americans for decades. While Nancy Pelosi and her party claim ‘chaos’ and Trump is turning crisis into clarity — freezing $26 billion in blue-state pork, halting green-energy pet projects and directing departments to prepare reduction-in-force plans as part of a broader review of spending and accountability. Those plans are now in motion: the Office of Management and Budget confirmed that federal layoffs have begun, with cuts underway in Health, Homeland Security and Commerce. Washington calls it chaos. I call it a cleanup — a reckoning long overdue in the deep-state swamp. For the first time in modern history, a shutdown isn’t about stalling — it’s about a president reshaping Washington for the people. Shutdowns of the past stand in stark contrast to today. Under President Bill Clinton in 1995 and 1996, Washington clashed over how to balance the budget and rein in spending. The government shut down twice for 26 days as parks closed, workers were furloughed and each side blamed the other. It ended with both sides blinking. They struck a compromise that preserved the exact bureaucracy they fought over, and Clinton walked away with higher approval ratings while the deep state remained intact. Even during Trump’s 2018–2019 standoff — the longest in history at 35 days — Washington fell back into the same pattern. The fight over border funding and national security ended in another stalemate, yielding $1.375 billion for 55 miles of fencing, barely funding the wall and no reform to the bloated machine. WHITE HOUSE ESCALATES SHUTDOWN CONSEQUENCES AS DEMOCRATS SHOW NO SIGNS OF BUDGING: ‘KAMIKAZE ATTACK’ For decades, Washington’s playbook during shutdowns has been the same: panic, finger-pointing and a