3w ago

The GOP expected Democrats to relent on the shutdown by now. That isn't happening.

www.nbcnews.com

Democrats have only hardened their position as the government shutdown enters its 23rd day, leaving Republican majorities in Congress with few answers — and many criticisms.

For the 12th time, Senate Democrats blocked the Republican Party's government funding legislation this week without a single senator switching his or her vote.

Just three Democratic caucus members voted for the bill: John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Angus King, I-Maine. That means Republicans are still five votes short of the 60-vote threshold to ensure passage of the bill, just as they have been since before the government shut down 23 days ago.

Democratic voters had pressured their party to take a more confrontational posture toward Trump in the shutdown battle. The new stance may be paying off with the party’s base.

105 comments

There is no negotiating to be had on the issue. Remove the cuts to healthcare or fuck off.
- Sadly, most Americans have very short attention spans and will soon forget what the shutdown was about and will be more concerned with a short term crisis than long term health care worries. My worry is the Republicans know this, after all they manufactured this nation's eroded attention span and used it to gain power already.
  
  The last shutdown ended after 35 days when LaGuardia was shutdown due to protests ftom airport workers who weren't getting payed.
  My prediction is a similar thing will happen.
  
  That's a messaging shortcoming, not the public's fault. If I have short attention span it is mostly because shit is stacking faster than I can cope.
  
  Nah. That type of voter is also the type to just blame everything on the party in power.
  
  Every single newspaper acts like only the Democrats have any agency.
- It's actually worse. With the pocket recision that has already been used, the administration has literally demonstrated that they will rescind any deal they don't want to pay for. Frankly, the only way to negotiate in good faith would be some legal measure passed and tested by the courts (because the pocket recision used to be illegal until this SCOTUS ruled in favor of it, like just in time for this budget needing to be passed), guaranteeing that the administration will fund what Congress has appropriated funds for.
Fetterman is a disgrace.
- He's just appeasing the Nazis. It worked back in WW2
Just three Democratic caucus members voted for the bill: John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Angus King, I-Maine.
Hear that Nevada and Maine? You should probably deal with your traitors.
Everybody already knew about Fetterman
- Listing Maine’s as independent makes it odd to list them as Democratic.
  
  'Democratic caucus'; I assume they usually work with the Democrats despite not being one, a la Bernie Sanders
Keep it shutdown and keep the core message that GOP can end this if they cared about health care for normal americans.
Keep up the pressure and rally around the message.
I was just telling my best friend that I think this shutdown is going to go on for six to eight months. Possibly to the point where the pot boils over and the government gets thrown away because it was closed for so long.
At least, one can dream that after months of bitter pain and suffering, we might possibly get people who care about others running a government. But that’s a whole hell of a serving of pain and suffering before we get there.
Fuck it, let’s general strike this place. Medicare for all with the govt reopen and all those critical services back or nothing ever happens again.
- the government gets thrown away because it was closed for so long.
  Is that a real possibility? How does that actually work? Is there a new election triggered automatically if the government was shut down for 6-8 months?
  If not, you will most likely be waiting and hoping forever, all the while things just keep getting worse.
  
  Governments are the product of the people. There is no divine or natural laws that triggers "an election". A government is simply created from thin air when a group of people (any group of people) get together and say: fuck the old system, we are putting that in the trash and signing a new social contract.
  Of course, there's virtually never unanimity of agreement over this social contract in one geographic area, so that social contract is only as binding as the force used to put it in effect.
  Realistically, 6 months+ of government shutdown in the US will likely cause a collapse of the USA as a single unified federal entity, since the federal government effectively rots. At that point, all bets are off. A fracture of the US is very possible.
  
  In parliamentary democracies the budget is automatically a vote of confidence. If the government can't pass it, an election occurs. Nothing shuts down because the system is still operating on the existing budget that was already passed.
  
  Is that written into laws? No. But you know who made the original government? People who decided to make their own shit.
  We have more information and better access to new decisions. We can simply decide to start over collectively and start once again. We don’t have to do things because that’s the way they have always been (in our individual lifetime).
  
  No, that's not a thing that happens.
  
  Is that a real possibility?
  No, there are far, far too many people who are not just ready and willing to seize on any power vacuum, no matter how small, but are actively trying to create those opportunities.
  There is nobody in charge above a nation. There is nobody going to come turn out the lights and clean the place up if we can't manage this. The will of the people has eroded, and unless we all get VERY organized, and I don't mean protests with funny signs, we're stuck with this.
  
  Is that a real possibility? How does that actually work
  Generally but not always with violence
- Possibly to the point where the pot boils over and the government gets thrown away because it was closed for so long.
  Lovely notion, but realistically... who is going to do the "throwing away?" There's no system above our government. We don't have a deal with Britain that they'll come back if we can't manage our country. There's no real such thing as law above a nation.
  Instead we have thousands of aspiring political leaders on both sides who will see ANY vacancy of power as an opportunity. They're jockeying right now like Mad Max behind the scenes, but instead of tricked out cars with spikes, it's committees, delegations and policy wonkery to get prepared for the midterms which are still a year away.
  I am only saying all this because you and your friend's sentiment is common and needs to be adjusted... Nobody is coming.
  
  Who would throw it away? Most likely the states, possibly the military, and least likely but possible, a popular movement of the people.
  In the event of the collapse of the federal government the states still have their individual governments. It'd be painful everywhere and especially painful in most red states but we wouldn't necessarily have a total political collapse.
  I do agree that it's extremely unlikely to happen.
  
  I guess you missed the whole last paragraph I mentioned where we can do a general strike and start helping ourselves. But sure, whatever you say bub.
- I feel like a dramatic dissolution should be a possibility considered, but I don't really expect us to come out of it with a new people-focused government. Likely if the budget never gets passed Trump decides he doesn't need Congress and just starts spending money as he wishes. He'll even start with funding something the people want, then once it's established that he can just spend money and no one will stop him, he'll move on to the instruments of oppression. When the military is directly being paid by the president, we'll see how much of their oath is really to the Constitution.
From this start it seemed likely to me that they would hold out until Heath Insurance rate letters stated going out.
I’m gonna have to vote for Fetterman in three years, aren’t I.
- That depends on whether someone in PA can assemble the resources needed to primary him.
  
  I honestly dont expect him to run for reelection. The guy seems to absolutely hate being a senator after having a stroke. He definitely despises being in the public eye or the center of attention to some degree. He also seems to not really have much awareness of things going on around him in general anymore. He really should not be in such a stressful position in his current state of health, and I doubt he wants to be. Pride is probably the sole thing keeping him from stepping down. It definitely isnt his love for being in the role, that is for sure
  
  Or if he just decides to call himself a republican like he acts anyway.
- Oct 16 - Daily Beast
  Top-ranking Democratic Party officials in Pennsylvania are gearing up to run against Sen. John Fetterman in a 2028 primary contest, according to a report.
  Big names in the state who could well run against the increasingly embattled incumbent include House Representatives Brendan Boyle and Chris Deluzio, along with former Congressman Conor Lamb, Axios reports, citing multiple inside sources.
  Axios added it was not clear whether Fetterman, who is understood to have ambitions of running for the White House, plans to run again for the Senate or the presidency in 2028.
  Fetterman texted Axios saying, “enjoy your clickbait!” and requested “please do not contact” in response to follow-up questions. He also shared an article citing him as one of “the least Trump-aligned Democratic lawmakers in the state.”
  
  Lmao at that last sentence..
  
  "Please do not contact"?!? Dude, you're a senator and that's the press. You're in the wrong job if you want to be able to ask to not be bothered by the press.
  
  I still can’t tell how much of this is sarcasm. I literally chortled out loud about half way through reading the quote, I think around where it said run for White House. Then the rest I didn’t know if I was supposed to be taking seriously.
- Who likes him?
  
  People who drive Equinoxes
Good. Hold the fucking line.
- I just feel bad though now that others have to stand in a food line. But I agree.
  
  These ones will be figuring out how to keep eating if this keeps up, given dependence on SNAP.
  Hold the fucking line.
We don’t negotiate with terrorists.
- We literally do, though. We negotiate all the fucking time. Reagan was negotiating with terrorists when he said that.
Goddamnit Fetterman be an actual democrat again for 5 minutes.
- Why hasn't he been kicked out yet?
  
  Seriously. He needs to be censured and removed from the party. Make him run as an independent.
  
  Same reason Charlie Brown hasn't kicked that football
  
  What's the process for removing a sitting Senator?
  He hasn't been kicked out because he won the election, that's how that works.
  
  Even if Fetterman was primaried, there would just be a new rotating villain.
  
  Because there are lots of Fettermen. He's just the most visible one.
PA has some of poorest, worst quality of life conditions I have seen in this country. They really need to boot Fetterman. Jesus, wtf?
- ....what? Are you sure you've been to Pennsylvania?
  Fetterman can get fucked though, I'm with you there
  
  Yeah, generalizations aren’t great. I’ve seen beautiful parts too. I have driven through and have family from small towns out in the country
Hope they downgrade the US’s credit reputation yet again.
- Last time they did that, sales of Treasuries actually went up. Quixotically, the downgrade hurt the stock market. People divested of equities. And then they needed to move the money to a safe place. So.... uh.... Treasuries.
  
  Not gold?
Fair play to the Democrats, but they are still untrustworthy.
- Can we stop being childish and more practical. Perfection doesn't exist,
  
  And then when Dems get into power again, let them enable fascism all over again? They had 4 years to curb stomp fascism but they didn't.
  What's practical is to primary progressives. "Perfection is the enemy of good" is a thought terminating cliché to accept breadcrumbs. Outside of US, it's actually a common mindset among conservatives they tell to electorates to accept the status quo.
- Wow a politician is untrustworthy? 😯
Honestly, so did I. Good for them.
They have balls?
- Well, it doesn’t take balls to do nothing—buuuut, yes hold the line.
this maybe the best way to reduce our government’s size…
- Let's start with the most worthless, lying, thieving, and corrupt heads of state in the history of the USA.
- I would have started with the people pulling the levers instead of starving out the essential gears that keep a government running.
- What’s the right size for a government? And not just any government — the federal government for the richest country in the world?
- Do people think at all before speaking?
- letting Biden’s FBI go after him
  I smell a Republican.
  
  Yeah it smells like bullshit.
- What do you think is the right course of action? How could the Democrats turn the shutdown into a win?
  
  Extended shut downs usually go against the ruling party.
  They should hold the line and only compromise if they get real, serious concessions from the other side.
One thing Schumer's good at is doing nohting.
I'm sorry, but the rules for how your government works are so confusing.
And requiring budget bills to pass every year or you entire government shuts down is a bug most other democracies patched out last century. (You just make everything roll over by default if you can't pass a budget). The US Government seems to be constantly in shut down. It's kinda dumb folks, it doesn't need to be this way.
I could have sworn I heard that the 100 person US senate only needs 51 members to pass a bill, but I vaguely heard they don't want to do that because it overrides the option to filibuster?
What???
Very lost over here

105 comments