Last week, Donald Trump’s White House anticipated the impending government shutdown like an album release, placing a massive countdown clock at the top of WhiteHouse.gov. “Democrat Shutdown Is Imminent,” read the online home of the People’s House, on a black background. Now that the shutdown has happened, a clock is counting upward: “Democrats Have Shut Down the Government,” it says, with numbers climbing to mark the seconds, minutes, hours, and days that have elapsed.

This is an unusual use of the White House website. Though WhiteHouse.gov has always been a place to showcase the administration’s agenda, it has mostly looked like the website of a mid-size high school. During the Clinton administration, it had the goofy GeoCities look of the day (American-flag GIFs); by the start of George W. Bush’s presidency, it had transitioned into a bland informational page rendered in blue, white, and gray, clotted with text. (“President Bush Participates in Signing Ceremony With NATO Secretary General De Hoop Scheffer for NATO Accession Protocols for Albania and Croatia,” for example.) It stayed that way, with minor tweaks, throughout the Obama administration, and it was as dry as ever during Trump’s first term too. Even as Trump was inciting an insurrection against the United States government, his team did not use the White House website to promote that g