Americans have lived through government shutdowns before. There have been 21 shutdowns (including the present one) since 1976, most frequently during periods of divided government. Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now President Trump have all had to spend days (and in the case of Clinton and Obama, weeks) with the government closed while lawmakers and the White House staff negotiate.

Sometimes the shutdown is a minor blip, the result of partisan bickering over menial budgetary issues. Cool heads eventually prevail, and people go back to work.

Never, however, have we seen a government shutdown as ridiculous as the current impasse. Nobody wants to negotiate; in fact, getting a meeting between the president and several moderate House Democrats as the White House tried to do this week has been a chore. Washington is now dominated by base politics, with Trump highly resistant to caving on the $5.7 billion he has demanded for his precious border wall and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., equally unwilling to provide a dollar of additional money for a vanity project they blast as “immoral.”

So here we are, 27 days into the longest government shutdown in history, effectively at square one. If there are any talks even occurring at this point, lawmakers aren’t exactly optimistic about them.

The first four weeks have been terrible. But this week, we entered a whole new plane of absurdity.

It began on Wednesday, when Pelosi notified Trump in a brief letter that it may be best for him to postpone the State of the Union address for a later date — like when he decides to reopen the government. Trump "thinks it’s OK not to pay people who do work,” Pelosi remarked during a news conference on Thursday. “I don’t and my caucus doesn’t either.” The move was pure politics and grandstanding on the part of America’s most powerful Democratic lawmaker, a way to get under Trump’s thin skin and make congressional Democrats look like the responsible party.

Yet Trump doesn’t take punches without punching back. On Thursday, Trump issued his own letter to Pelosi telling her that the trip she was going to take to Belgium, Egypt, and Afghanistan will be canceled due to the government shutdown. “In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay,” the letter read, “I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.” It was typical Trump: sarcastic, petulant, proudly confrontational, and red meat to his most committed supporters.

The country’s two most powerful politicians are now duking it out over scheduling issues. If you thought Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reading Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor during the 2013 shutdown was a national embarrassment, the Trump-Pelosi cage match is so bone-chilling that it makes you want to find your passport and move to Canada.

Nobody wins when departments and agencies of the federal government run out of money and turn off the lights. While 800,000 federal employees are working without compensation and Transportation Security Administration employees are using their sick days, the public are wondering what about Washington turns the people they elect into such lunatics. Every day, the disconnect gets worse.

There is a common-sense solution on the table. Republicans and Democrats can pass a spending bill that pairs border wall money with permanent protections for illegal immigrant "Dreamers," and Trump signs the bill into law, thereby reopening the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. A broader immigration debate will have to wait. This looks like the only way to end the standoff: Both sides need to swallow a bitter pill, act like adults, give the other political side a minor win, and recognize that they won’t get 100 percent of what they want.

Stop crying like kindergartners and canceling events, thinking that these tactics are something average people are impressed with. Deal with the business at hand before the public grow even more discombobulated with politics than they already are.

Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.