WASHINGTON — Scenic Theodore Roosevelt Island on the Potomac River was closed during the government shutdown on the 100th anniversary of the great Republican president's death. That living tribute to "the wildlife warrior" is just one of many bad optics around the capital during this Republican regime.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Republican majority leader, famously plays "the long game," the title of his memoir. Ensconced in his elegant Capitol office, steps from the Senate floor, he loves his long game political strategy.

But not this long. This is already the longest winter of McConnell's long life. He's 76 going on 77.

Shucks, he can't persuade the president that a "big beautiful (border) wall" isn't worth holding the government hostage. No, he can't talk Trump down from that dang wall. And Republicans almost always stick together under his iron leadership.

So far, McConnell has stuck to his script: The Senate will only take up a bill the president will sign. It may be a way of ducking. Yet the emphasis on the president is not accidental. McConnell is telegraphing where the problem lies.

I suspect he doesn't like Trump much — insiders don't usually like outsiders that storm the temple.

If the shutdown crisis weren't so serious, if the city wasn't darkened, if the Smithsonian museums weren't shuttered, the fix McConnell's stuck in would be ironic and amusing.

So a Republican president is creating a faux "national emergency" to build a medieval wall separating Mexico and the United States - causing the chief Republican congressional leader to reach for his smelling salts.

Known as a shrewd Capitol character, McConnell has been around the block a time or two. He knows that government shutdowns are political poison at the ballot box. He himself is up for re-election in 2020, along with several wavering Republicans in his caucus, like Colorado's Cory Gardner. So, this is no laughing matter. It's getting personal.

It's confounding as a halftime act for an unpopular president. Trump does not even pretend to care about the pain he's inflicting on the federal workforce.

If Trump would listen, McConnell could work something out with another pro, new House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in 10 minutes. He'd bring the House-passed bill to the Senate floor, which it approved last month to avert a shutdown. I've heard him say, near the Ohio Clock, in colorful country language, that shutdowns are like a mule kick.

The federal government shutdown, with Trump's gold name on it, is poised to break a three-week record. It is an insult to the citizens of the United States, and our public institutions.

Across the nation, nearly a million people are furloughed or working without a paycheck. Food stamps and tax refunds are under threat. The State Department is missing many of its experts. Farmers may not get their usual Department of Agriculture loans. Government scientists who study the oceans, weather and environment are not doing their jobs. Airport security may be at risk, according to the airline pilots association.

The symbolism of closing the capital's grandeur is all too apt. Locking up national galleries, the zoo — all free — sends a hostile, stark message. The city feels like it is not breathing for the American people.

Here's the thing McConnell knows. Americans don't like it when working people and their families are punished for a political reason beyond their control. The federal government should never be used a political weapon. This is a terrible replay of the Newt Gingrich-triggered shutdown against President Clinton for which Gingrich paid a high price.

At the end of a day, people like the government to be there for them, plain and simple, without drama or fuss. That's all. McConnell knows that the shutdown is a great gift to Pelosi, but what can he say or do? He might have to lose his Republican religion just this once.

I interviewed McConnell once as a rookie reporter. Oh, he had the yearbook from when he was student body president. He showed me a picture of Kentucky Senator John Sherman Cooper, for whom he interned. Cooper was his inspiration.

Say what you will about McConnell as a tough partisan player, but his political instincts are sound and true north.

Trump's governing instincts are true south.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit the website creators.com.