The longest government shutdown in American history is finally over. At least for the time being, politicians have agreed. The government will reopen with no funding for Donald Trump’s wall.

Trump was determined to to build his wall, as it was his signature campaign promise. After shutting the government down for 34 days and holding back paychecks from federal government workers, he got absolutely nothing. No funding for his wall whatsoever.

According to Trump they “made a deal” but in reality Trump just caved from the mounting pressure to pay federal workers and is unwilling to admit defeat. The Democrats ultimately spent no money on a border wall, or steel barrier, amounting to a success.That gives Americans $5.7 billion of taxpayers money can now be used for services that aren’t pointless.

In reality the shutdown didn’t change anything; the only reason the government was shutdown for such a long time was neither side wanted their reputation tarnished. It should not have taken over a month to come to such a simple and inevitable solution. Politicians kept the government shut because they were afraid if they gave up anything their voters wouldn’t forgive them, but that’s simply not true.

“Other news events quickly overtook them… one month after the 1995-1996 and 2013 shutdowns any changes in the polls that occurred during the shutdown vanished.” Analysis of approval ratings from previous significant government shutdowns by FiveThirtyEight.com showed.

The shutdown will likely not affect either side in 2020 so the shutdown isn’t even justifiable to protect political careers.

With this knowledge it was plainly irresponsible of politicians to remain in political deadlock while people’s livelihoods hang in the balance. Neither side wanted to be the ones to be forced say they kept the government shut for over a month and didn’t get what they were asking for not just for their parties approval but for their individual political careers. It appears particularly bad for Trump as he ran on being a master negotiator.

According to FiveThirtyEight.com, 71 percent of government workers don’t approve of the shutdown. Government workers may have their own opinions about the wall, some strong enough to support the shutdown (21 percent of federal employees support the shutdown), but for the majority of people, feeding oneself and one’s family as well as paying the rent come above political agendas. Every day on the news there was another person with another sad story. Choosing between insulin or food, having medical needs met or paying the rent. And all for what? One wall and some reputations that probably will be fine either way.

It is also important to remember that the wall the shutdown revolved around won’t work. This should not be a debatable topic. The only thing you need to defeat a wall is a ladder or a shovel. People who have walked the thousands of miles from Central America to The United States are not going to be stopped by a wall.

It is the responsibility of the Americans and their politicians to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Republicans need to stop following Trump off cliffs and stop being afraid to stand against  his ideas, especially when they’re foolish and have the possibility of sending the country into chaos.

Democrats may have came out of this victorious but that doesn’t mean they should be willing to do this over again. The impact of the shutdown is still unclear, but it’s safe to assume the only positive one is that $5.7 billion weren’t spent on a wall.

The last and probably most important task is to be sure that congressmen know that month-long shutdowns are not popular with most American people. That’s on you.