Government shutdown
Posted by James Zhang
The government shutdown does occur when Congress fails to pass bills or continuing resolutions to fund federal government operations. It is not uncommon at all in the U.S. history. As of January 25, a 35-days shutdown of the U.S. federal government continues, when Congress did not meet president Trump’s demand for $5 billion to pay for his campaign-promised border wall with Mexico. The government shutdown affects people across the nation, especially governmental employees. Here, let us take a look at what people all over the country say about this shutdown across different social media platforms.
Concerning 2018-2019 Federal government shutdown, the total volume of online conversation on different social media platforms is 714,000. A majority of these conversations is from Twitter. Over the past week, the volume of online conversation reached its peak at 150,000 on January 23.
In terms of online sentiments, about 58 percent of online posts showed negative attitudes toward this long-time government shutdown. For instance, some online users were questioning about why President Trump cannot end the shutdown while others were concerned about the negative impact of the shutdown that could bring to the economy.
“Government,” “Shutdown,” “Federal,” “Wall” were four top mentioned words on different social media platforms. Among those words, building the wall is so often associated with government shutdowns. One example is that many online users retweeted one message saying that about 71 percent of Americans do not want the government shutdown just for paying Trump’s border wall.
Federal government shutdown keeps continuing. So far, there is no clear sign of when it is going to end yet. Despite this, according to news from yesterday, President Trump has agreed to deliver his State of Union address on the planned day.
