The Debt Has Increased By HALF A TRILLION Since The Shutdown Began
The Debt Has Increased By HALF A TRILLION Since The Shutdown Began
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black) November 10, 2025
By the autumn of 1648, England had been embroiled in a chaotic and bloody civil war for more than six years. Extreme ideological tensions in England had been building for decades over freedom of religion, plus the balance of power within government.
King Charles was wildly unpopular. And a majority of politicians in parliament saw it as their sole mission to resist him. Many believed adamantly that parliament should rule over the king and ultimately dictate all laws in England.
On the other side, a number of traditionalists thought parliament to be a corrupt body of liars and thieves, and they wanted to preserve the power of both church and king.
Tensions erupted into war in 1642, eventually resulting in Charles’ capture and imprisonment.
At that point the majority of parliament didn’t have any desire to extend the crisis any further. They felt like they had won sufficient concessions. Enough was enough. So they negotiated a peace treaty to end the civil war, much to the relief of people across England.
Unfortunately there were a number of radicals who pledged to continue the fight no matter the cost. They viewed any compromise as failure.
One of those was a little known Member of Parliament named Oliver Cromwell, who, on December 6, 1648, sent more than a thousand troops to surround the palace of Westminster and block the entrance of Parliament.
Only the most radical members were allowed entry; the rest were either blocked or arrested.
Cromwell’s aim was to prevent the peace treaty from being ratified; he felt that it was too soft with too many compromises. And as a result, the English Civil War continued, followed by Cromwell’s personal dictatorship, for more than a decade.
I hope I’m wrong but I think the US is in store for a similar head fake. After more than a month of the shutdown, there were signs over the weekend that a compromise had been reached in the United States Senate.
But the theater began almost immediately after, with the radical Left vomiting all over the deal and insisting that they would “continue to fight.”
My sense is that while a lot of people may believe that the government shutdown is nearly over, this may in fact just be another miss, just like England’s ‘almost’ peace treaty in 1648. There’s a good chance this compromise will be blocked by aggressive radicals in Congress.
To say this is a national embarrassment is a massive understatement. And at this point it’s nearly all branches of government and institutions chipping away at the remaining dignity of America.
One of the things that I find most bizarre is how many prominent radicals seem to think their shutdown is “winning the hearts and minds of the American people.”
They believe this because of last week’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia in which the candidates from their party won.
Now, the combined margin of victory of both candidates was about one million people. There are roughly 350 million people in the United States.
Yet, in the mind of a Leftist radical, one million voters in two states speak for 350 million Americans in 50 states, and therefore they have a moral mandate to keep “fighting” while the government remains closed.
This raises a key question: fighting for what?
Well, they claim to be fighting for healthcare affordability. Coincidentally this is the same party that passed Obamacare more than a decade ago— during which time the cost of health insurance in the US has soared above and beyond the already uncomfortably high rate of inflation.
Strange, considering that the actual name of the legislation was the Affordable Care Act. Yet it seems to have only made healthcare less affordable.