On the other hand, movement conservatism is anathema as well. Free trade is out, state's rights abandoned, except maybe as the exception that proves the rule, governmental power concentrated in Trump personally, rather than small, local government, representative democracy, lower taxes, less regulation, rule of law. Freedom of speech reduced to conservative speech getting special treatment. All also gone. Weird.

The question here is should we continue to subsidize health insurance for that person? Should taxpayers who can work and do work pay for the health insurance of wealthy people who can work and don't work?

It does not sound fair to me, even though I might benefit from it in the near future.

Anyway, I'd make them either own the shutdown or take responsibility for forcing the bill through. I'm not giving them an out, they will answer for the suffering they create by not negotiating. Negotiating, which I remind everyone, for a single clause to make sure healthcare costs don't go up $100/month or more for half of Americans.

This line of rhetoric is fascinating to me. It's as if someone locked my family in a room, lit it on fire, and is now telling me we can't leave unless we give them permission to shoot one of us in the head. And, to be clear, they very obviously have no intent of opening the door and have already shot one of us in the head.

The democrats have quite literally zero power in the federal government. They have lost every single branch in all meaningful ways. This was the only leverage that exists. And they gave it up for quite literally nothing.

I cannot fathom the line of thought that they just had sweeping election victories across the board, voters are at an all-time low WRT the Trump administration, the mask is starting to slip on MAGA - realizing that Trump and Republicans are the source of pain and that they do rely on the net, Democratic fervor is rising, and with the holidays coming it is about to cause serious pain to America that can finally snap them awake to the reality of...

Actually, you know what? Nah, they didn't fold immediately. Clearly trying to do anything doesn't work, so let's do absolutely nothing and give them everything they want! They'll surely listen to us now!

The short term pain was intended to be a cure. To show how destructive Republicans are. How much they're willing to make people suffer to avoid even a shred of assistance toward normal people's lives. That they'd rather fund Blackhawk helicopters in Chicago than food or healthcare.

But now we're back to the long term pain. Republicans have been justified - it was the Democrats fault for stopping government for no reason. And we're still losing the ACA subsidies in the short term - raising rates at least double digit percents. And Republicans are still gunning to kill SNAP and ACA in general. And progressives have just witnessed their leadership cave, killing voter momentum.