by Emil Guillermo
The October shutdown of the U.S. government is a joke.
I explain that in a bit.
But first, I had the pleasure of performing with comedian Shawn Felipe, who hails from Honolulu. He just won the famed San Francisco International Comedy Competition.
I caught up with him backstage at the Filipino Comedy Festival, held this year at San Francisco’s Bindlestiff Studio, and later this month in New York.
Felipe was the headliner, and I was the feature. He’s been at it longer than me, a journalist/comic. Felipe told me he was performing in cruise ships for years, and then when COVID hit, he was forced to go back into his day job in aquatics. But now he’s back, and winning the SF Comedy Competition is a big deal.
I bring up Felipe because comedians, not politicians, know jokes.
And for some reaso,n the October shutdown is a laugh riot for Republicans.
It’s anything but that for normal folks.
If you’re a Filipino American federal worker living in the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia), you’ve got to be worried about being among the tens of thousands of layoffs and furloughs that Republicans are threatening.
Most people voted Republican in 2024 because Trump promised to cut prices and make life affordable. According to exit polling, 40% of Filipinos voted for Trump.
Now, he’s cutting your jobs.
And it’s really simple to understand why we’re in this. Republicans control the presidency, the House, and the Senate.
They run it all.
And they want a budget that rewards their rich friends with tax cuts and punishes their opponents and all of the American people.
When there was still time to avert a shutdown, there was no serious attempt to stop the pain that the majority of us will undergo.
What did President Trump do approaching the deadline?
He put up on his official social media account a fake AI-generated video featuring Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the first African American to lead a major party in the history of Congress, in a Mexican hat.
It was a racist and demeaning video. And Trump reposted it as truth.
Jeffries was depicted in the video standing next to Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, and he was given a fake voice mouthing how Democrats wanted to give “illegal immigrants” health care.
The Republicans used a fake video to illustrate a lie, knowing many people would think it was real.
VP J.D. Vance said the next day, it was a joke. They were just “having fun.”
Funny how Vance didn’t laugh when Jimmy Kimmel joked about how Trump was exploiting Charlie Kirk’s death.
But that’s how politics is played today. Fake videos, fake truth used to justify real pain to Americans.
In Your Face
On day two of the shutdown of the U.S. government, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson picked up where the fake video left off.
He didn’t need AI; he just personally lied to the American public on live TV.
Johnson was on cable news saying the impasse is because Democrats want to give health care to “illegal immigrants” (his racist term).
He was simply parroting the thinking of his political lord and savior, Donald Trump.
They all seem to be following the pattern of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist who wrote in 1941, “When one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it.”
Because people will believe the lie to be true.
To its credit, CNN, which was airing Johnson’s “news conference,” cut away and stopped showing Johnson on its air.
And then the CNN anchor confirmed the health care/illegal immigrant charge, as stated by the House speaker, was a lie.
Will that undo Johnson’s GOP lie?
Will it stop many Filipino Americans today from saying, “We need the shutdown because we don’t want illegal immigrants to get health care benefits.”
This is the problem with the shutdown.
The Republicans want it and will do all they can to confuse the American public about why it’s happening.
The Real Health Care Issue
The fact is Republicans are for cutting credits that will make your health insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act unaffordable.
And that’s for everyone who has insurance under the ACA. If Republicans have their way, your premiums will skyrocket, and up to 24 million people could lose coverage.
Democrats want to negotiate the point now and end the shutdown.
Republicans would rather play dumb, keep the shutdown, and do all they can to tear down the government.
As an example, Trump isn’t just threatening to cut thousands of federal jobs; he’s also holding up federal money. “Roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects,” according to Russ Vought, the Trump official who created Project 2025.
And why are they holding up those funds? It’s because of “unconstitutional DEI principles,” Vought said on social media.
DEI principles of inclusion are unconstitutional? It is more unconstitutional for the executive branch to withhold funds that have already been approved by Congress. But to use race as part of the excuse to withhold the money?
This shutdown is fueled by racism.
It’s the perfect environment for the autocratic tendencies of the Trump administration to rear their ugly head.
When GOP leadership in Congress, fearing Trump, cedes power to the executive branch, and when the courts are more than willing to let Trump be, there’s just one branch standing.
That’s why the shutdown will go on. The Republicans and Trump like a shutdown.
It puts us in a place where the unlawful, the unconstitutional, the illegal, and the immoral can all happen before our eyes.
And no one can stop him.
Believe me, a sometime comedian, it’s no joke. The Republicans can stop the pain whenever they want. But all they do is laugh and lie.
They’ve parked us in The King Zone. TFN.
If you’re in San Francisco, see the author perform his latest “Emil Amok” monologue, Nov. 19 at the SF Marsh. Save the date and get tickets now. Visit https://themarsh.org/shows_and_events/marsh-rising-emil-guillermo/.
EMIL GUILLERMO is an award-winning veteran journalist, commentator and stage monologist who has written columns on Filipino and Asian American issues for more than 30 years.
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