The specter of a partial government shutdown looms over Washington this Friday, February 13, 2026, as the Department of Homeland Security faces a funding deadline that threatens to plunge thousands of workers into furlough or forced labor without pay. This latest episode in the endless theater of capitalist politics offers a vivid illustration of the class character of the state and the perpetual struggle between labor and capital.
The Department of Homeland Security, that sprawling apparatus of repression and surveillance, stands on the precipice of a funding lapse at midnight tonight. While the Trump administration and congressional Republicans engage in their familiar kabuki dance—posturing, threatening, and bargaining over crumbs of funding—the real story is the human cost of this political theater. Federal employees, many of whom perform essential services in immigration enforcement, border security, and domestic intelligence, face the prospect of being forced to work without compensation or being cast aside entirely.
This is not merely a bureaucratic crisis; it is a microcosm of the class struggle writ large. The state, in its essence, is the executive committee of the ruling class. When Congress and the President engage in this high-stakes game of chicken over DHS funding, they are not debating the needs of the people—they are bargaining over the means by which the capitalist class maintains its dominance. The threat of a shutdown is a weapon in the hands of the ruling class, a tool to discipline the working class and demonstrate the fragility of its position.
What makes this episode particularly telling is the selective nature of the crisis. While DHS workers face the prospect of furlough or unpaid labor, other federal agencies have been funded through September. The ruling class has chosen to prioritize the apparatus of repression and surveillance over the needs of the broader working population. This is no accident. The Department of Homeland Security, with its ICE agents, border patrol, and intelligence units, serves the interests of capital by policing the working class, enforcing immigration laws that divide and weaken labor, and maintaining the conditions necessary for exploitation.
The history of the twentieth century is replete with such episodes—government shutdowns, funding battles, and crises of authority that reveal the class character of the state. From the strikes of the 1930s to the labor struggles of the 1960s, the working class has repeatedly confronted the state as an instrument of capitalist power. Today’s crisis in Washington is merely the latest manifestation of this eternal conflict.
The workers of DHS, like their counterparts across the federal government, are caught in the crossfire of a political system designed to serve the interests of capital. Their struggle is not merely for funding or fair wages—it is a struggle against the very nature of a state that exists to protect the ruling class. The solution, as Trotsky understood, lies not in reforming this state but in overthrowing it and replacing it with a workers’ state that serves the interests of the entire working population.
As the clock ticks toward midnight, the fate of DHS workers hangs in the balance. Their plight serves as a reminder that the class struggle is not a relic of the past but a living, breathing force that shapes our daily lives. The working class must recognize its own power and organize to confront the state as an instrument of capitalist oppression. Only through such struggle can the path to socialism be cleared.