As far as government shutdowns go, this one has so far lacked the round-the-clock chaos of its predecessors. There have been no dramatic late-night clashes on the floors of Congress, no steep stock-market plunges driven by panicked investors, no prime-time presidential addresses from the Oval Office. Even the running clocks on cable-news chyrons have disappeared.

But in the reality show that has replaced a properly functioning system of democratic governance, we are fast approaching the moment when a shutdown stops being a subject of political bluster and starts hurting Americans. And as much as President Donald Trump and his allies have tried to direct the damage from what he derisively calls “the Radical Left Democrat shutdown” toward “Democrat things,” the pain will soon be felt just as acutely in MAGA country as in liberal areas.

Over the next week, a series of wires in the federal bureaucracy and broader U.S. economy will be tripped. If past shutdowns are any guide, those developments will force Congress and the White House—which so far have spent more time trading internet memes than serious proposals for a settlement—to begin seriously negotiating a way to bring this to an end.

It’s not that the government shutdown is going well; it’s just not as bad as it will soon be. The nation’s air-traffic-control system is already buckling because of staffing shortages: Airports across the country, including Chicago, Las Vegas, Newark, and Washington, D.C., are reporting delays.