The new year might mean there’s a new and improved you, but there’s also a new, more chaotic Congress. While you’re beginning this semester making a workout schedule, hitting the books a little harder or throwing away your Juul (maybe), your newly elected congressional representatives are doing, well, nothing.

The government is currently in the longest shutdown in our country’s history, foreshadowing the political dysfunction that will define the newly divided Congress over the next two years.

The reason for the government shutdown is clear: Democrats adamantly refuse to fund a border wall, and Trump refuses to move forward without it.

Ironically, Democrats have supported funding for border barriers in the past. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – who was the Minority Leader in the House when Republicans were in control – voted for legislation as recently as 2017 that funded close to $2 billion for the same wall she now calls “immoral.”  Even President Obama in 2013 oversaw construction of over 100 miles of barriers along the southern border.

Though current Democratic leadership purports to care about border security, it seems to be ignoring Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders, who have nationally testified to the effectiveness of physical barriers along the southern border.

The Washington Times even reported that 89 percent of Border Patrol agents support building a “wall system” to combat illegal immigration.

The sound bite circulating among Democrats that they object to the wall because it is “wasteful spending” also seems shaky. After all, their first appropriations measure of this new year increased foreign aid by $12 billion more than the amount the Trump administration requested – doubling the $5 billion requested to fund the wall.

So, why do Democrats prefer to keep hundreds of thousands of federal employees from receiving their paychecks rather than spend 1/10th of one percent of the federal budget on a border barrier that is generally popular in the law enforcement community?

The answer of course is political. For Democrats, it is more politically advantageous to roadblock and grandstand in the face of Trump than to compromise and govern with him.

Democrats could easily reopen the government, fund the wall and get funding for initiatives of their own. However, this would result in Trump fulfilling yet another one of his campaign promises.

The popular objection that because Trump ensured the American people Mexico would pay for the wall, he has no right to demand taxpayers fund the border barrier is legitimate. Trump joked multiple times throughout his 2016 campaign that his negotiation skills might result in Mexico simply cutting a check to the U.S. for the wall.

However, it was always more likely with Trump’s emphasis on renegotiating trade deals that the costs would be covered by savings through cutting trade deficits. In fact, the president has initiated, despite fierce resistance, radical transformations to our trade relations with other nations, including Mexico. Recovering costs by modifying NAFTA and instituting protective tariffs was always the more realistic and effective strategy for ensuring Mexico absorbs the costs of the wall.

Of course, the actual details of funding the wall are immaterial due to the Democrats’ emphatic midterm shellacking of Republicans. The rallying cry during this blue wave was resisting Trump, and Democrats are unlikely to shift from campaign mode to governing until they have succeeded in removing Trump from office.

One of the first bills introduced in the new Democrat-controlled House was a measure by California Rep. Brad Sherman to impeach the current President for lawfully firing his FBI director. Sherman, a 20-year veteran in the House, knows that such a bill is pointless at this stage in the FBI investigation, but his objective is resistance, not effective governance.

Another fresh face of the Democratic Party, Rep. Rashida Talib, publicly declared to a cheering crowd her plans to impeach Trump, referring to him by a word not publishable in The Crimson White.

Currently, Democrats aren’t approaching the wall as a policy proposal to restore order at the southern border. Instead, they view it as the most prominent embodiment of Trumpism and feel obligated to uncompromisingly resist it. The reality is that they, like Trump, are obligated to compromise to facilitate the reopening of government.

Over the next two years, our representatives should focus on serving the country, not posturing for the polls. Opening the government and simultaneously tackling the perennial problem of illegal immigration would be a welcome first step toward effective governance.