Republicans are apparently insisting that the shutdown is about subsidies for rural airports. Democrats just want to continue providing these wasteful subsidies, blah blah blah. The AP reports it as "Republicans say this, Democrats say that," which is bad enough, but the Washington Post buys it wholesale. An article there attributes the shutdown entirely to the rural airports.

But what the Washington Post either genuinely does not realize or is willing to go along with Republicans in pretending that it does not know is that Republicans are threatening these rural airports in order to get their way on the real issue: union rights for airline workers. Republicans want to go back to an old system in which if you are eligible to vote in a union representation election and you do not vote, you are counted as a no vote. It's a blatantly antidemocratic system, and it's what this shutdown is about. Rural airports subsidies are one more tool to try to win that issue, and it's not just me saying so