Are Social Security and Medicare the Third Real in Politics?

Nate Silver: I think obviously we've never defaulted on our debt before. But kind of the situation that I see as analogous are like government shutdowns, which tend to have real tangible political impacts but they're short-lasting. This I feel like would probably be longer lasting because presumably the economic crisis that would be created would last longer. The public is actually pretty sophisticated in terms of being able to say who is to blame.