The government might shut down this weekend, which is bad news if you’re a big fan of government. And since the Republicans are in charge, a shutdown will be their fault. That’s how it works. This is in stark contrast with the threatened government shutdown in 2013, when the Democrats were in charge, because that would’ve been the Republicans’ fault. Big difference.

You might be a liberal if you’ve been #resisting the government for the past year because Donald Trump is in charge of it, and now you’re panicking at the prospect of insufficient government. (And you might be a “conservative” if you want to drain the swamp, right up until the moment your own lilypad starts to dry up.)

It’s not all good news, though. If we allow Those Evil Republicans™ to shut everything down, we could lose one of our most important public services. We could say goodbye to one of the things that Makes America Great Already. Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN:

If Congress fails to avert a government shutdown by its Friday deadline, the popular panda cameras at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington will be turned off…

The panda cams allow curious folk and panda enthusiasts to watch the three giant pandas — Tian Tian, Mei Xiang and Bei Bei — while they play, roam around, sleep and chomp on bamboo.

Whoa. Hold on. I’m not such a big fan of Tian Tian or that insufferable diva Mei Xiang. But they want to take away my precious Bei Bei? Those inhuman monsters!

If you want to watch those magnificent beasts lolling around chewing on sticks, for the time being you can still watch the National Zoo’s panda cams here. Then try to imagine a world where you can’t click a button anytime you want and watch these furry creatures sitting around all day being completely useless. It’s terrifying. This is Trump’s America in microcosm. This is what we’ve become.

Just kidding! I don’t like pandas. But a lot of people do, because they’re the perfect victims. They’re oblivious to the world, they require constant nurturing just to survive, they use up precious resources, and they generate nothing but food bills and excrement. But they’re clumsy and cute, and they make us say “Awwwww,” so we keep them around. They’re a lot like babies, except they’ll never grow up to amount to anything and feminists don’t want to kill them.

If there’s a shutdown, the National Zoo will still feed the pandas and wipe their butts and trick them into mating with each other and whatever else our taxpayer dollars do for those dumb beasts. But you won’t be able to watch any of it on your laptop while you’re supposed to be working. Which is the only point of the whole thing anyway. If a panda farts and there’s nobody listening, does it make a sound?

The worst part is, we continue to coddle these bamboo-biting ingrates even after we’ve already come up with a better version of them. We’ve already improved upon nature. We’ve already made those repulsive two-tone sluggards redundant:

Which would you rather watch: a barely ambulatory throw-pillow sitting around eating scrap lumber, or a magnificently acrobatic CGI warrior voiced by the inimitable Jack Black to the accompaniment of the legendary AC/DC? You already know the answer, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself.

We don’t need pandas, and we certainly don’t need government-funded panda cams. Let all these fat, lumbering crapsacks fend for themselves (and that also goes for the pandas). Shut it down. Shut it all down.

Just leave the koalas alone. Those little guys are so adorbs!