I sat there in 2011 in a Pentagon agency...wasting a dozen hours planning our short-man operations plan. They were entirely serious that we’d be on the no-work situation unless deemed ‘essential’. In the end...about half of the civilians were on non-essential list and were preparing for trips to visit relatives or vacations. They all knew they’d be paid for the off-days. I had a ten-day trip planned and they screwed that up by making me essential.
The shutdown threat is a bluff.
It’s about time the uniparty was called on it.