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The government has gone dark and the country is left to decide whose fault it is. It looks like the decision has been made. Four national polls taken just before and during the shutdown point to an uncomfortable fact for the White House that more Americans blame Trump and his fellow Republicans than anyone else.

The Washington Post's survey, conducted on the very first day of the shutdown, gives the bluntest picture. Nearly half of Americans say Trump and the Republicans in Congress are to blame. Only three in ten blame Democrats, while almost a quarter shrug that they are unsure. Strikingly, independents split by more than two to one against the toad-god's "administration."

When voters who pride themselves on being free of partisan loyalties decide in such numbers, that should ring alarm bells at MAGA headquarters. And even inside MAGA's own ranks the cracks are starting to show. One third of Republicans either blame their own side or say they simply don't know.

Morning Consult found much the same when it asked voters where the fault should lie. Forty-five percent blamed Republicans in Congress, while just under a third blamed Democrats. Here again independents tilted heavily against the governing party. To lose independents once is misfortune, to lose them in poll after poll is evidence of political malpractice so obvious that most people are finally waking up to it.

All of this points to a truth both obvious and politically damning. When a party controls the White House, the House and the Senate, the public expects that party to keep the lights on. Voters don't make fine distinctions about the need for 60 votes in the Senate or the delicate dance of cloture. They know only that one side holds power, and that side is therefore responsible.

Republicans may argue that Democrats are obstructing them in the Senate, but such explanations rarely survive the simple test of the easily discoverable facts. When you're in charge, you govern.

The lesson of past shutdowns is that blame begins to harden after a week or so. At present, the numbers lean heavily against Trump and his MAGA thugs. If the impasse lasts, those numbers will become concrete. The longer it goes, the more Americans will view Republicans not as victims of gridlock but as its engineers. In politics perception is reality.

This is the fourth government shutdown of the 21st century, and in three of them Republicans owned the House and Senate, in one they owned the House. Shutdowns are now a Republican phenomenon, and the self-styled king of the "art of the deal" is the owner of the current one and the last one, the longest one in history. I wouldn't be surprised if he bumbles his way into another record.