Talking to a TSA Agent about the Government Shutdown

I’m flying from JFK airport in New York to SFO today. The longest government shutdown in US history just got put on pause for 3 weeks yesterday where 800,000 federal employees had been furloughed.

I asked him how the last three weeks had been going. It sounds like he and many others were working voluntarily, but a number of people on other shifts didn’t come in. So people had to fill in.

He says the runways had been gridlocked. It affects people — in the government, and also everyone else too.

And then he shared a few sentences on his political views with me which I really found interesting.

It’s clear that he doesn’t like Trump and has a lot of disdain for the way federal workers had been treated.

But, he says to me, “I still pray for him.”

“We gotta pray for him. And pray they remove him. He is going to ruin this country.”

He says to me: “We are all different cultures here,” — here being the TSA agents. And he goes to list them. “You see that guy who checked your bag. He’s a senior officer. I’m a senior officer. We see things differently.” By differently he means that he still feels an obligation to his job, to safety, that he is above the pettiness displayed by the politicians.

He talked about his oath, his duty, he showed me his badge. He said the president is unfit, he hasn’t even been in the military or has any idea.

“He’s a horrible human being.”

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I wish I remembered the rest of the conversation, because honestly I don’t usually get into a full conversation with a TSA agent.

I pretty much agree with him. But it was interesting to hear his perspective — he works for the government and I do not. But I think if I were a federal government employee who watched the fiasco of the last three weeks (and several years), I have a hard time seeing how you can support the president.

And now there are still three weeks of uncertainty, and a meaningless political game about an idiotic wall which is purported to solve a problem that does not exist, and even if the problem existed, this would not solve it.

I wonder what the other TSA agents think.