If you frequent conservative forums you'll notice people are more committed to the fascist project than they are to Trump. He may in the end be disposable to them.
The government seems to fear that it would.
It’s all linked together though.
Which does make it challenging for them, since Trump's an elderly man who doesn't look to be in particularly good health.
In other words, I think Trump was able to succeed politically because he was "the guy from TV".
I don't think the current media environment is making more "guys from TV" (at least not with anywhere close to the status they had ~25 years ago).
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TulTH6psCsw
I mean, yeah he probably flubbed his words, but let's also be honest in that most likely what happened was he was going to performantly proclaim "Let's stop protecting the pedophiles" realized mid-thought that that would effectively equate to saying "Release the Epstein files" putting him at odds with Dear Leader and at that point rafael_ed_cruz_brain.exe crashed and dumped core containing the shocking statement he ended up saying.
I don't know what else would make sense given that he didn't immediately correct himself, which is what one would expect if it were just a traditional brain fart.
>I mean, yeah he probably flubbed his words, but let's also be honest in that most likely what happened was [...]
So not explicit? The whole point of something being "explicit" is that the point can be conveyed through straightforward reading of what was said, not vague implications through "dogwhistling" or "what he must have meant was...".
But yes, a lack of pay is incredibly disruptive for the furloughed individuals and those like law enforcement officers (who Republicans claim to support...) who are required to work without pay for the duration.
Guess we'll see how long they keep the hand on an increasingly hot stove.
Republicans would have to change the Senate rules which currently require 60 votes, they only have 53 seats. If they changed the rules, it would have passed without the Democrats who voted yes to it yesterday.
Yesterday's vote was 55-45, with 60 needed. Two Democrats and one independent voted for it, with one Republican voting against. Without those three, it was still 52-48. A change to a simple majority vote would have averted the shutdown.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
That's not quite correct. Senate rules are set by simple majority, but the the proposed rule change itself can be filibustered mid-term, except for when someone can exploit procedural rules of cloture to squash it.
Those rules were exploited in 2013 to remove the judicial filibuster and again in 2019 for the Supreme Court. It's called the "nuclear option" for a reason, but the road is already paved.
Also probably because Republicans never negotiate in good faith. What is there to negotiate with when you're being called "the enemy from within"?
The same thing happened in 2018 when the previous shutdown happened, also with Trump in the White House and a Republican majority in both houses. The Senate Republicans lacked a supermajority and did not change the rules, and the government shutdown for 35 days.
> The Republicans absolutely could change the rules, and don't require that same supermajority to do so, so this is squarely on them.
Remember, changing the rules means all future rulers can play by those rules. The extensions of these types of powers is exactly the type of thing that leads to Turnkey Tyranny.
The US is the only democracy in the world that has this feature or anything like it.
It'd require, now, raising taxes beyond what even the most high-tax friendly Democrat would want, or substantially cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense spending. The Democrats will never reduce the first three enough, and Republicans will never reduce the first two and Defense enough.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
Everything below those four is basically a rounding error, you could cut bits and pieces but nowhere near enough to balance the budget. And you can't cut interest payments without defaulting on the debt itself, which would create so many more problems. We need to raise our revenue by something like 50% or lower our spending by about 33%, or something in between on both.
> this is squarely on them [the Republicans]
They have the opportunity right now to end the shutdown without requiring any Democratic or independent votes.
They could have offered a compromise budget. They only needed five more Democratic or independent (one available, the other already voted yea) votes.
They did not choose either of those options, instead presenting an option that they knew the Democrats would vote against. That was their choice, they could ignore the Democrats and pass it anyways, or they could work with the Democrats and both can get what they don't want.
> They have the opportunity right now to end the shutdown
They can also do extensions, provisional budgets, they can better carve out ensuring more workers actually get paid?
And yes, they knew the Dems would vote against and they had months to reach that compromise. The same is true in the other direction too. The problem relates to a dysfunctional government where we've created such division lines that compromise cannot be reached. Playing into the belief that it is either side (on this specific issue) just furthers that problem. Watch the rhetoric: Republicans blame Democrats, Democrats blame Republicans.
Funding the government is not a partisan issue. What to fund is, but you can't always get what you want and that's a feature, not a bug.
It's worth noting that the 3/5 requirement for most legislation is a recent development. Before around 2008 it was quite uncommon to require a filibuster-proof majority to pass legislation.
There's a count of the times this has come up on the senate's website: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/cloture/clotureCounts.htm
Nearly every Republican has voted on a continuing resolution which would just kick the can 30/60/90? days.
Yes you can. It is called reconciliation and it was made for passing a budget with a simple majority. Problem is when republicans used it earlier this summer they didn't actually fund the government fully so now they need 60 votes.
How did the OBBBA get passed under reconciliation then? I thought the whole point was that bills could only pass via reconciliation if it didn't change spending/revenues?
They do not seem to be acting in good faith, not sending people to negotiate any of this. Combined with the leaking presidents comments about being able to force through things under shutdown they wouldn't be able to otherwise, I think a reasonable interpretation is this shutdown is intentional and part of someone's plan.
edit: since subtext is dead its called Project 2025 and it's supposed to be a "bloodless coup" of the federal government. And if that isn't obvious by now please wake up.
edit: Forgot about Watergate for a second there.
Veliladon•1h ago
ToucanLoucan•1h ago
chris_wot•1h ago
cosmicgadget•48m ago
But considering the counterparties can be countries like South Korea, Italy, the Philippines, Argentina, and Brazil, it's not like disruption isn't already baked in.
jedberg•27m ago
The last two terms (and this one assuming the law is actually followed) will all be 4 years.
Going back to the beginning, only 34% of the terms have been 8 years or more.
asdff•37m ago
OkayPhysicist•17m ago