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Whose #shutdown is it anyway?

Nation

While politicians loft harsh words about the federal government shutdown through microphones and press releases, the battle over who is to blame for the situation has been ongoing online, too. A Twitter war has broken out between many congressional members. With a variety of hashtags, both Democrats and Republicans are using the Twitterverse to spin the government shutdown fault onto each other.
Originally, a majority of Republican leaders were opposed to the government shutdown. But a few members, led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), fervently campaigned for the shutdown strategy. In his 21-hour speech on September 19, Cruz said the government shutdown will have positive outcomes because it would mean Republicans had stayed their ground.

However, as Republicans started to receive more criticism for the tactic, it became harder to discern Cruz’s stance on the matter.

He retweeted President Obama’s tweet yesterday:

On the day before the shutdown, Cruz blamed the situation on Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid via hashtag:

Harry Reid used a hashtag-less tweet to put fault on the GOP, calling it a Republican shutdown:

Meanwhile, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi used hashtags that point a finger at the entire Republican party and to draw attention to the House’s inaction:

Speaker John Boehner’s hashtag, however, put the blame of inaction on the Senate:

On President Obama’s Twitter account, Speaker Boehner is blamed for the shutdown:

The president’s Twitter account also issued a call to action for Congress, using the hash tags #enoughalready, #justvote, and others.

So, as the government shutdown continues and politicians continue to play the hashtag game, the question remains: Whose #shutdown is it anyway?

H/T Ariel Min

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