Folks, the upcoming government shutdown and constitutional crisis are not the same as previous ones. This is just another step in a carefully-designed agenda, much of it paid for by an increasingly fascistic group of billionaires.
Right now much of the city and state governments across the country have been totally infiltrated by ALEC-like groups, who have been able to pass a host of laws privatizing all kinds of government functions, including the many aspects of the justice system, traffic toll collection, prisons, and many others.
These people have been getting ready for this for many years, carefully plotting and planning their moves.
They have even carefully cultivated their support among the population, in the form of their "useful idiots," including religious fundamentalist nut-jobs, gun-crazed fanatics, and ultra-nationalist racists and ethnocentric.
Here's the scenario you should start to think about as an actual possibility: The Republican thugs will hold their ground. When time comes for voting on the debt ceiling, they will force a head-on confrontation. At this point, the President will either cave (as he usually does), or if he breaks the habit and stick to not his principles of not gutting the social safety net, then the Republican thugs will force a default and a government shut down, which is their preference.
Once this happens, the financial markets go into a tailspin, and chaos ensues. At that point the government screeches to a halt, having been rendered impotent.
In the middle of this chaos, it is possible that local municipalities, cities, and state may tap into the system and infrastructure that has been put in place via influence peddling, the result of business interests having bought off local government officials.
As the social safety net is disrupted, crimes skyrockets, and the private prison industry and surveillance infrastructure springs into action.
This gives an excuse to the gun-nuts who have build-up private armories across the country to become more organized, and active. It also brings to the forth the nut-jobs crazed end-of-days Army of God types.
Remember, these people have been carefully primed fro this moment... Again, the "useful idiots" of the Plutocrats.
By the time the dust settles, and the Democratic party establishment gives in, and the government comes back "online" we would live in a much different world: A nascent fascist Corporatocracy Police State.
If this ends up happening in this fashion, then everything the Republican thugs are doing makes sense. If you want some proof of this, keep in mind that a lot of this agenda is being currently financed by ALEC and fascist billionaires like the Koch Brothers.
This is just more of "Shock Doctrine" stuff; it never goes away. The problem is how these dangers are so present, but somehow people on the Left fail to understand the true nature of the threat. They can't fathom how truly evil these people are, and what they are capable of.