Let’s all face it: The United States is in a state of chaos.

For the past year, American citizens have faced an overwhelming amount of tragedy, confusion, fear, and hate.

Mass shootings, nuclear threats, Mother Nature, more of the unthinkable, and then BOOM! – the federal government officially shut down on January 20, 2018.

But don’t panic – if you haven’t heard or read somewhere already, the government is back up and running. However, a crisis like this and whoever is accountable cannot be dismissed too quickly.

For starters, let’s evaluate what a government shutdown actually is.

According to Business Dictionary, a government shutdown is a process the executive branch of the government must take when Congress cannot settle budget disagreements for the upcoming fiscal year and stops all but “essential” federal services.

The disagreement in question stemmed from a democratic approbations bill which would bring supermajority in voting to an end.

Supermajority is when more than a fair number of votes are needed for a bill to be passed. Let’s say, for example, 70 people out of a 100-person population would be required to have the same vote, instead of 50, which would be the “simple majority” in this scenario.

President Donald Trump tweeted just four days before the shutdown, “the Democrats want to shut down the Government over Amnesty for all and Border Security. The biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding Military, at a time we need it more than ever. We need a merit based system of immigration, and we need it now! No more dangerous Lottery.”

Congress couldn’t come to a fair agreement when it came to protection for undocumented migrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children. The Democrats wanted to protect at least 700,000 of these migrants, or “dreamers,” who had been protected by DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program according to The Independent newspaper.

The shutdown occurred coincidentally on the one year anniversary of Donald Trump’s presidency and lasted almost three days until the Democrats finally gave in and a new spending bill was passed and approved by Trump, who called it “A big win.”

Meanwhile at AIC, one student responded to the situation with words of disgust.

“The government sucks,” says Kei’Shairra Jackson, a sophomore at AIC.

The faith in our government is declining more everyday, and that makes living in a stable society extremely difficult or basically impossible. Not to mention we’re under the presidency of Donald Trump, whose approval rating is at a low of 39% according to BBC.

This systematic chaos has taken its toll on much of the American population.

NASA, the military, taxes and government officials were all put in jeopardy by the shutdown. This is the eighth time the government has shut down, and America cannot afford for this kind of mistake to happen again.

If the shutdown would have continued or even happens again, certain rights and privileges would be denied such as the right to get a gun permit and the social security process would be extremely slower than it already is according to CNN.

One AIC professor said the shutdown’s impact is likely to be lasting.

“I think, in the long term, the consequences become pretty serious for all of us,” AIC professor John Rogers told Western Mass News.

Thankfully, the shutdown is over, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep a close eye on the government and their agenda. With the government being a democracy in America, citizens should play an active role in our government as well.

By being more informed about the bills and laws that are passed every day, citizens could have seen this coming and society could have been better prepared.

As we settle into 2018, it is important for everyone to play their part in society and when one group falls short, it is the responsibility of the other groups to stand up to solve the problem and prevent it from happening again in the future.

As our president would say, let’s Make America Great Again.