As someone who actually worked for the Federal government when it shutdown in the past, people are exaggerating the implications for narrative purposes. This happens semi-routinely, there is a boring reality that goes along with it.
The people worst off are Federal contractors. They are effectively unemployed during these periods. Many actual employees, like me in previous shutdowns, are essentially on irregular paid time off. In theory it is unpaid, but it is always retroactively paid in practice and everyone knows this. People that are “critical” kind of get a raw deal because they still have to work while people deemed less essential don’t have to work.
It is unfortunate that it happens but I wouldn’t get overly caught up in the theater of it all.
> This happens semi-routinely, there is a boring reality that goes along with it. [...] retroactively paid in practice
An important difference is that in the past employees were furloughed... but yesterday Republicans threatened they would permanently fire employees instead [0][1] and I'm not sure how it'll shake out.
Their hostage-taking threat falls flat though: They already have have a solid track record of capricious and/or illegal firings [3][4] since the election. There's no reason to expect appeasement would make them stop what they still want to do anyway.
Crazy to me how easily people fall for this us vs them, red vs blue garbage.
It's completely detached from reality. You know, that place where real people live and suffer the consequences of their inept representatives. Focusing on which political party gets the "W" is so upside down.
I'd just like my country to not fall into the fascism its grandfathers fought and died to oppose. My bar is really damn low at this point and the US simply keeps digging under it.
Indeed. We've been begging them to throw us in the briar patch of a government shutdown for decades. The first one I remember was about 1990 when Democrats threatened a government shutdown if Bush the Elder didn't break his no-tax-increase pledge. He caved, and they (rightly) hung the "liar" tag on him all through the election. All he had to do was pander to his base and give them exactly what they wanted, but he was more interested in working with the establishment. (Which we should have expected, but we didn't know the Bushes as well as we should have.) Finally, we win one.
So they pass a CR, and the president ignores the budget and fires whomever they want anyway. The only people who can fix this are the Republicans in Congress, by pushing back on the president and making him actually obey the laws that they pass. Democrats are completely powerless here.
Republicans made this mess, they are the only ones that can fix it, and now they own it. I guess we'll find it if this is what their constituents really want. Midterms are coming up.
It really does feel like the GOP has given up on appealing to votes and are just trying to see how much more they can tear down in the next 13 months. They are either ready to make a disgraceful exit or they really have faith that Trump will pull some drastic move to rig the vote.
Of course, the latter basically means civil war. Then again, Trump already declared war on the US recently.
>As someone who actually worked for the Federal government when it shutdown in the past, people are exaggerating the implications for narrative purposes. This happens semi-routinely, there is a boring reality that goes along with it.
You seem to have normalised Government shutdowns in a way to cope with it.
But this is not normal, this does not happen in a normal government process.
1990's: 3 shutdowns totaling 29 days (21 of those days was when Gingrich as Speaker)
2000's: 0 (9/11 and GWoT unity?)
2010's: 3 shutdowns totaling 54 days
2020's: This one
I guess I would agree they were common but they also weren't severe until Gingrich-ism took over the GOP: putting polarization and partisanship into overdrive.
In the rest of the civilized world, a 'government shutdown' - a no-confidence vote - would result in a snap election, where the voters immediately get to choose who to punish and who to reward with power.
IMO, a government shutdown is a signal of a failed state. It's not a thing that should happen, and if it does, protections should be legislated immediately so it doesn't happen again. Political bickering shouldn't have reached this heights.
> IMO, a government shutdown is a signal of a failed state.
It is not a signal of a failed state. It is a signal of a failed government. The solution to that is to keep having elections until you get a government that will do the work.
The signal of a failed state is the voters voting this madness in, and approving of it. A snap election in this case would likely result in more of the same. Check out the congressional approval ratings among republicans of their reps. What they are cheering on is absolutely wild.
I would say there seems to be a hole in some legislature systems (Israel, Germany, India?) where the thresholds required for various functions seem unlikely to be attainable with certain vote total splits between multiple parties.
And in those times, voters are unlikely to defect from parties just because.
Ergo, there's a succession of very weak governments that rapidly collapse.
Which doesn't seem great for governance either. Feels like a perfect system would have a better 'there is no mandate attainable, so no one gets power but a shared government is forced into office for minimum X years' numerical escape hatch.
A true government shutdown, yes. But here, all the nation-state-defining stuff (military, border control, police) stays up, and only parts of it shut down.
Except in Belgium from 2007 to 2011. I think they had two separate periods of seven months without a government due to Dutch-speaking and French-speaking parties engaging in what they called negotiation. This happens immediately after elections, when they need to form a coalition.
I found out yesterday that it is now the law that federal employees are guaranteed back pay after a shutdown, thanks to the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 passed after the 2019 shutdown.
Except for people who are on welfare programs. They also dont get their payouts. Sure they WILL get it all back. But just because people will get to eat next month doesnt mean not eating this month isnt a problem.
It really doesn't matter what the Democrats do here. The president can just defund anything he wants, regardless. The Republicans are running the whole show. They can fix it any time they want. Trying to blame this on the Democrats is ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure I do. Funding is continued at current levels. Then the president just cuts whatever he wants, because the Republican Congress won't force him to obey the laws they pass. Every Republican in Congress is completely spineless, because they are afraid the president might say something bad about them.
It takes 60 senate votes to pass the resolution. There are not 60 GOP senate votes. Regarding the resolution, the senate minority can control passage or not if they have at least 40 votes.
So everything you said above besides “funding is continued at current levels” has nothing to do with why the government was shut down today. It was shut down today because there were not 10 senate democrats that were willing to vote to continue the existing funding even though they chose to continue the funding earlier in the year.
Sure. They vote to continue, and then the president cut what he wanted out of it anyway.
The Senate Republicans could simply get rid of the filibuster and pass it on their own. They won't, because this way they can blame the Democrats.
The Democrats have no power if the Republican Congress won't do their job and make the president obey the law. Blaming the Democrats for this mess is complete bullshit.
They have filibuster power and power when a supermajority is required, like this situation. However, if you want the power afforded to the majority you need to win elections. You can certainly blame them for failing to elect legislative majorities and losing control of the presidency. That’s all on them.
You keep saying a supermajority is required, when it simply isn't. There is nothing in the constitution or law that requires it. It is simply a custom that the Senate has done it in the past. But it has also been a custom that the president faithfully executes the laws that Congress passes, which this administration doesn't.
We'll see what happens after the midterms. I don't expect this president to finish his term.
> …supermajority is required, when it simply isn’t…
It’s the rule they use, are you advocating here for the GOP to use some sort of rule change “nuclear option” to push through the CR? Pretty sure the GOP saw (and warned against) that sort of thing back in 2013. The current makeup of the Supreme Court should give your pause about these “just change the rule” notions.
Do you realize that literally what Schumer is trying to do here is to blackmail a political policy on the country that he did not have enough support to get included in the One Big Beautiful Bill right? He is holding government operations hostage because his party lost an election, the majority who were elected passed a bill that was signed into law by Trump that the dems didn’t like.
The democrats are literally trying to thwart democracy with this shutdown and people on here are acting like that’s a good thing?
To be fair, the BBB is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever created. Period. Not even just fiscal legislation - legislation in general. Anyone who even tries to support it is either actually evil or completely clueless.
Not only does it raise our deficit by trillions we actually get negative stuff in return.
We're literally paying people to steal from us. Thats how incredibly shit this legislation is.
So why did you (meaning the American voters) vote to elect a GOP president, GOP senate, and preserve GOP control of the house?
People seem to forget that America wanted this. None of this is a surprise and it was all vetted out during the election last year. Dems even warned about some of it, but still America chose it.
Because people are ignorant, they vote based off of fee fees. Nobody actually looks at policy.
Also, the GOP keeps telling people they're good at fiscal policy. They're not. They've put out almost exclusively shit fiscal policy for the past 25 years.
I mean, the last president to even try to lower the deficit was Clinton. But the GOP won't tell you that. They'll just fear monger about the debt ceiling and how evil Democrats burn money.
And then they get into office and somehow manage to write policy so unbelievably shit that we burn EVEN MORE money.
They may not be in the majority, but they won their seats in their own elections which gives them their own power. This era is defined by realpolitik and might-makes-right use of official power. Democrats wielding their (again, legitimate) power to extract maximum leverage to thwart the agenda of the opposing party is exactly how Mitch McConnell played politics. If you're upset about this and claim it's thwarting democracy, then we can have a conversation about replacing Gorsuch with Garland.
Oh I am not upset about it, as I said elsewhere that it was their prerogative to do it which is why the dems own it. I think it’s a bad/stupid strategy, because for a shutdown to be a threat, the other side needs to not want it at all. Russell Vought is salivating over this to cut jobs, Schumer knows this (which is why he caved in March).
This was a political Pascal’s wager for Trump, win or break even. For the dems there isn’t even a neutral result to forcing the shutdown—it’s just all bad.
McConnell played the ace that Harry Reid passed him. Unconventional and breaking with tradition, of course, but ultimately “advice and consent” meant exactly that. The senate withheld consent for Merrick Garland. There is no doubt that given the opportunity again one day, the dems will do the same thing. Hell, it was their idea.
> for a shutdown to be a threat, the other side needs to not want it at all.
Depends on who the other side is. Russell Vought doesn't need to answer to voters next Fall. On the other hand, the Republican representative who won a major-thin margin in my district, ousting a Democrat who delivered for their constituents, would very much like something to point at other than a shutdown for their reelection campaign.
Blaming the Democratic Party when the other party is in control of all three branches is the true idiocy. The GOP is refusing to govern to show how broken the government is.
You should probably read up on what it takes to pass a continuing resolution on government funding in the senate. The GOP and some democrats are willing to vote for the CR. It’s the dems that are refusing to govern in this case.
> It’s the dems that are refusing to govern in this case.
Congressional republicans are refusing to govern at the macro scale, by failing to enforce the law against the executive.
Congress has the power of the purse, but Trump has decided that he can just do whatever the fuck he wants with it, and violate the Hatch act. Why should the dems not use a filibuster against a congress that colludes with a criminal?
“In this case” refers to passing the CR and shutting down the government.
The dems are choosing to shut down the government that they willingly funded earlier in the year for their reasons.
You may agree with the reasons behind their disagreement with the GOP and the president—but if you are agreeing with their tactics than you are ok with shutting down the government to get them. You and I can disagree on whether or not that is governing. I don’t believe it is, I believe it’s a tantrum that will ultimately backfire on them.
The other tools they have is to primary to find good candidates and win elections. They have chosen to rig and skip primaries to front lousy candidates. They could modify their platform to find issues that wont turn off centrist voters and avoid shedding off those voters who are more interested in the 80 part of the 80/20 issues.
> The dems are choosing to shut down the government that they willingly funded earlier in the year for their reasons.
Those reasons are 'The funding congress voted for isn't being spent on the things congress voted for'. They have every right to stop further spending.
> I believe it’s a tantrum that will ultimately backfire on them.
The recent history of the Republican party and Trump is nothing but one political tantrum after another, while they screech from the rooftops about some social wedge 20% distraction issue[1]. If any of that actually caused political blowback from centerist voters, they'd have about 30 seats in the Senate and 180 in the house.
[1] It's interesting that you seem to think that access to healthcare is some pet 20% issue.
> It's interesting that you seem to think that access to healthcare is some pet 20% issue.
Well of course it is. Depends wholly on who that “some” is. Redefining illegal immigrants as legal to gain access to healthcare is definitely on the 20% side of that ratio.
Again, you're blaming the minorities when the majority holders are refusing to play ball and provide for its people. Do you understand why the CR isn't getting enough votes?
Of course I am blaming the minority here for the shutdown. They are the only ones you can blame when one party doesn’t control 60 seats in the senate and hold the keys to a CR being passed.
Are you aware that some Republicans didn't even show up for the vote. Are you aware that before the shutdown, congress convened for 2 minutes (literal 2 minutes), took no questions, then ended session? Are yo aware that the compromise is on Healthcare and that 53 senators can't seem to agree with not increasing the premiums?
Where's the curiosity of this site gone? These weren't hard things to research.
Is there a paradox of tolerance situation here where you need to question curiosity in order to properly identity and engage with curiosity?
I've definitely had many bad faith responses here that only reveal themselves after engaging with them.
The Paradox of Tolerance may have been a valid idea as proposed by Popper, but the way it is generally invoked in contemporary internet debates is not really compatible with the HN guidelines. He was proposing it as a last step before a debate turns into violence. On HN we're not meant to act as though a hot war is about to break out unless we break the guidelines. The guidelines call on us to converse curiously, even if we think the other party is not doing so. They call on us to de-escalate, not find justifications for escalation.
If someone else on HN is breaking the guidelines, we should flag their comments and move on. If we want discussions on HN to be more curious, we should lead by example.
>The guidelines call on us to converse curiously, even if we think the other party is not doing so. They call on us to de-escalate, not find justifications for escalation.
That's fair, and I've flagged a few here. I don't think the above comment I replied to was flag worthy (having a bad take =/= having bad faith), but I do feel like it's a "borderline" comment that can either end in providing knowledge to someone, or devolving into a flame war.
I just feel kind of icky that I may need to "bait out" a bad faith actor. I'm not trying to "gotcha" someone and flag their account. But I know just having that mentality by itself is a bad way to approach conversation.
At the same time I also want to have have a charitable interpretation first and be able to point out certain points, no matter how seemingly obvious it is. It's an awkward balance.
We'd encourage you to resist the inclination to think of others as "bad faith actors". The guidelines ask us to assume good faith, and in my experience, most people on HN sincerely believe in their positions. That doesn't stop people being wrong, of course. But not many people here are deliberately dishonest.
Sometimes people have a hard time believing that others could be sincere in their positions, because those positions seem so unfamiliar and so far outside credibility. But usually that's just a sign that we don't spend enough time talking to people who think very differently to us.
We hope HN can be one of the better places to do that, but it requires us to come here with a spirit of openness.
My biggest fear is that they are sincere. "Of course it's the minorires' fault" in 90+% of contexts is a very dire stance.
And if we misaligned so much that we can't even agree on a point as base as "Do I have a right to exist", then that's when I know it's time to find another community. Those are the kinds of "curiosities" I'd not like to explore at this stage of my life.
I don’t understand the characterization here. This debate is about a minority of senators and the procedure of voting for or against senate resolutions.
Of course if anyone posts comments denying a minority in society's “right to exist”, that user would be banned on HN.
>would it had mattered if there wasn’t 10 more votes to continue it?
10 more people to convince their own party to compromise would be critical, yes. Opening congress for 2 more minutes would also help in discussions.
But the ones in power don't want to discuss. Who do you blame when negotiations can't even start?
> So yeah, I am fine with the GOP holding out on that.
Okay, glad we're honest now. You agree with holding the government hostage is worth strongarming the country into shutting down hospitals and have premiums go through the roof. There's nothing to discuss here at this point.
I don't pity the GOP here. They had a decade to figure out an alternative and all they can say is "burn it down". But strangely they keep failing to end the program. They should ask their constituents why this is the case.
>If you want the government to not be shutdown, go tell your dem senators to vote for it.
We're playing hardball at this point. If we need to shut down and show the country what the GOP wants to take from the people, then so be it. It's clear at this point that many Americans are reactive instead of preventative, so this was an inevitability in many ways.
I'm just glad my parents have been making exit plans from this madness all year. So yes, I've spent my entire life being impacted by these shutdowns by a single mother who was already struggling to make ends meet. I don't say "shut it down" lightly.
Not at all, but they already approved the funding that the government operated under until yesterday. So choosing not to this time which will only give the president cover to blame the democrats for something else and if the shutdown lasts, provides optics that the federal government didn’t really need those non-essential workers anyway.
To me, as an independent, it comes off as a childish tantrum by the democrats.
The president blames the democrats for anything and everything. Perhaps you've noticed. So this isn't much of a propaganda coup except for the very rare "independent" such as yourself who decides that this one is on them.
The democrats are drawing a negotiating line at giving people access to healthcare. Quite the tantrum.
I saw an interesting fact the other day. Not one democratic politician has apparently ever called the GOP Nazis or Trump Hitler. Can't find any examples of "trash" either. There was the infamous "deplorables" example by Clinton, however that was for a subset of GOP voters - not all of them.
It mostly seems to be the peanut gallery which uses that language - but never the leaders. So I'm left to rhetorically wonder, who's pushing the narrative that Dem politicians use that language? I even had coworkers who told me that Pelosi and Schumer are stoking the fires by calling our president Hitler. And yet they never said that...
Strange…when I google “democratic leaders referring to republicans as nazis or fascists” seems to bring up quite a few results. Biden, Gore, Pritzker, Harris, quite a few more peppered about among the Democratic Party elected officials.
I said Nazi/Hitler comparisons. Fascist fits the bill as much as socialist does for Democrats. Gore (retired) said it and apologized afterwards. Pritzker made the comparison yes.
So...that's one? A literally-who to most lay people, but yea, it is one Democratic politician. I see your one Illinois Governer and raise you one US President:
> "These people are running a Gestapo administration. It's the only thing they have. And it's the only way they're going to win, in their opinion..."
> "Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxists, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it actually a great badge of honor.... Because I’m being indicted for you"
If you wrote “certain” I guess I didn’t see it, I thought you just wrote “people” and were over generalizing what the policy in question really was…so my bad.
As an “art of the deal” thing, I feel bad for Schumer. He is between a rock and a hard place. I have never seen a politician in a greater position of weakness. Both with Trump and with his constituents. Trump can’t run again, so he doesn’t care about 2028 votes. He was impeached twice, spent four years getting hounded legally from the opposition party, telegraphed his entire intention for a second term and still managed to win re-election soundly, flipped the senate, preserved the house majority, and doesn’t care and even dares Schumer to shutdown the government.
Trump definitely didn’t run on “business as usual”. He ran on the exact opposite. So I am not sure why Schumer seems to think he has any leverage with drawing a line in the sand on a business as usual Biden immigration healthcare policy.
Meanwhile, he has the young attractive popular socialist nipping at his heels who makes his noisiest constituents happy and the largest city in his state excited to elect an actual Marxist.
Aside from the propaganda nonsense like "hounded legally", "immigration healthcare policy", and "actual marxist" you are spot on. The only thing congressional dems have going for them is Trump's association with Epstein.
Because the Democrats are demanding things they think are essential, like for the Trump administration to honor federal funding that Congress allocates.
That's facile: Past delays do not justify infinite delays, especially as dwindling resources or external deadlines change over time.
For example, "last time" (March) there were still several months to restore healthcare funding before the open-enrollment calendar period for American healthcare plans.
Compare: "You didn't think filing your income taxes was important when you got an 6-month extension 5.5 months ago!!!111"
I am just following Schumer’s own words from last year about passing a clean CR. There is zero way the democrats can defend this action in light of their past opinions and comments on the subject of shutdowns. Either they were wrong then, or they are wrong now. I believe they are wrong now.
From link below:
“Passing a clean CR this week is important for two main reasons:
First, passing the CR, of course, will avert a harmful and unnecessary government shutdown. No reasonable member on either side – Democrat or Republican – wants a government shutdown”
Some federal contractor companies have a plan but not all do. They may allow workers leave without pay, forced them to take vacation/PTO, or critical workers are forced to come in and do 3 jobs at once but be paid while their friends/coworkers are not getting a paycheck.
“The people worst off are Federal contractors. They are effectively unemployed during these periods.”
I do not know if they are worst off as hopefully they have some emergency savings, credit card, or 401k loan they can take out.
I think it's a bit worse this time since we have an unbridled President, that the SCOTUS has made King-adjacent, who wants to permanently fire a lot of the furloughed employees out of vengeance and with no clear logic other than he's angry. So this time it's not quite as matter-of-fact.
It's not unprecedented, but I think calling it "regular" is also downplaying the issue here. We've been roughly on a schedule of once per 5 years or so.
I think it is highly irregular given this presidency. Reagan shut down 3 times to weaken various unions and facilities, really wielding it as a bargaining chip. Clinton shut down twice as a president with a congress that didn't align with him
Trump has now shut down the government 5 times, and the truly odd thing is how 4 times he had congress on his side. This isn't really something to just shake off.
(and for completeness. Carter had the first shutdown ever and Obama shut down once as well).
Historically, congress always passed a one-time bill to retroactively pay the federal employees after each shutdown.
Because it turns out not paying your workers is extremely unpopular, especially if you want to retain them as workers in the future. Most people (federal workers included) are living paycheck-to-paycheck and can't financially weather a furlough - they still need to pay rent. The federal government would quickly find itself unable to attract employees given how often shutdowns occur.
Bear in mind that approximately half of the US (voting) population voted for this. It's not rational to believe that they perceive this in the same way you do.
Dude, you said "more popular than ever". When questioned, you say "all we have are feelings"? That's a pretty weak answer, especially when the other guy's presenting actual evidence...
Hegseth isn't an elected official, so nothing I said about elections is applicable to him. I did make a claim about Hegseth being "well respected by combat vets" which you will notice is different from both "approval rating" and "popularity" and also not at all relevant to the YouGov poll cited above.
I love this exchange because you reject the notion of approval ratings and also insist that you have objective knowledge about popularity. It is great to see somebody seriously argue “the only true reality is the one that I, specifically me, imagine in my head” like this sort of stuff is exactly what the internet is made for
We know this is true because the guy is more popular than ever. It’s written right there on the internet. People don’t just post lies on the internet, that would mess it up for everybody
That's a lot. I'm sure it all means something real and actionable like you can make real world predictions that have material impacts based on all of that.
I’m just having fun reading your posts. It is like seeing a guy stumble and pour half of his slushie down the front of his shirt and then yelling “My cup has more juice than ever before! I now possess heretofore unseen amounts of this juice!!” like it is great to watch
It's truly baffling how people can continue to watch this clown show and still go like "yeah, I think the truth is still somewhere in-between". It's some sort of pathological fence-sitting.
>If I'm reading you correctly you're saying "regular military drills" ≠ "preparing for war".
In the same way that going to your everyday job ≠ "preparing for retirement", no. That's only correct in the most semantic sense. It otherwise has a very strong connotation about near term plans.
>This is one of those stupid leftist arguments that only works when the leftist proponent has changed several of the key underlying definitions.
Well, I appreciate it when someone makes it clear they don't want to engage in a conversation.
Not just prepare for war, but to be able to pass physical fitness tests as a 20 year old would, for women to meet the male standards (what happened to male/female differences in sports?), and to send the military into cities they don't like.
True, and there's also no fitness scorekeeper. Wars are fought and won by having a diverse set of abilities. Physical prowess is one, as is intelligence and social skills (diplomacy keeps fighting from happening). So if reality is that we recognize differences in physique for sport, then we can accommodate these physiological differences in a well-rounded military that is inclusive to all who participate in the common defense of the nation.
This honestly sounds really great in theory, but in reality the accommodations and inclusivity became the whole game for the DoD, and winning wars kinda fell by the wayside.
It should have become obvious after Jan. 6, and yet...
I think a lot of people react the way they do because of fallacious thinking: if the US has two political parties, each with about 50% of the vote, then it is simply not possible for one of the parties to be run by radical extremists. Ergo, the other side has to be exaggerating or publishing fake news. (If someone has a name for this type of fallacy, please let me know.)
Of course, an uncomfortable number of people also cheer the authoritarian takeover of US government and try to normalize the mess for that reason.
You find the most crazy, unhinged, out-there thing said by a Democrat/Republican, and you use that to paint all of them as crazy, unhinged, completely out of touch with reality. Meanwhile, the other side is busily doing the same thing to your side.)
You can do the same thing with religion, economics, even sports.
>You find the most crazy, unhinged, out-there thing said by a Democrat/Republican, and you use that to paint all of them as crazy, unhinged, completely out of touch with reality.
This only works when you assume every person is the same. The POTUS saying these unhinged things makes it hard to discount this as some fringe argument. Especially when Congress and the SCOTUS do nothing to check it.
So Democrats should just concede to whatever the Republicans want despite what the Republicans want will negatively affect their constituents? What is your point?
What Republicans wanted was to continue funding the government, so no, Democrats should not have conceded to this. The Government is too bloated and needs some serious cuts. This gives Trump the golden opportunity to get it done.
It may not be the popular choice amongst republicans in congress, but this was entirely the right thing for the country, and I'm very grateful that Democrats got it done.
You are naive if you think just funding the government is all they wanted. Additionally, no, the government isn't bloated and their reckless cuts to the federal government has been, and will continue to be, devastating. They have realized this themselves by trying to emergency hire back (and failing to do so) fired workers.
> “We are just 14 hours away from a government shutdown. The House has passed a clean, nonpartisan continuing resolution to fund the government until November the 21st. The president is ready to sign it. Senate Democrats are standing in the way,” Thune said on the Senate floor Tuesday morning.
It was a clean CR. The executive branch powers are what they are, I get that Democrats are supper bummed that people don't want them running the executive branch, but the people wanted Trump, and Trump can use the powers given to him by the constitution as he sees fit.
All that being said, this really is non-sarcastically, non-ironically, the best things the Democrats have done this century. I'm really grateful.
I know Trump likes to play fast and loose with conflating the electoral college and popular vote, but it's accurate to say he barely won his electoral college landslide.
> Hegseth is telling top brass to prepare for war...
Hegseth said, "To ensure peace, we must prepare for war. From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is war fighting. Preparing for war and preparing to win."
Clausewitz said the same thing, and the Romans were saying "Si vis pacem, para bellum" about 2500 years ago. Is what Hegseth saying so different to JFK saying, "'Pursue peace,' the Bible tells us, and we shall pursue it with every effort and every energy that we possess. But it is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war."? Or so very different to Gerald Ford saying, "America's first goal is and always will be peace with honor. America must remain first in keeping peace in the world. We can remain first in peace only if we are never second in defense."?
Whatever the criticisms of the current US administration, someone expressing the idea that securing peace means preparing for war doesn't seem all that remarkable.
They spent a significant proportion of the 600 years between ~100BC and 500 AD fighting pointless and often very brutal civil wars.
~3/4ths or all Roman emperors died by various violent means. The Romans spent unsustainable amounts of money (resulting in veryhigh levels of taxation) to fund a massive army often the main purpose of which was fighting other Romans. Until it was too late... by the end not that many actual Romans were even willing to fight and die to save the empire.
Sure it's spectacular that they not only managed to survive but often even thrive despite that, still. Not sure if its the best example to follow.
The difference is Hegseth is an uncouth, unqualified stooge who renamed the Department of Defence to the Department of War. And if you're going to sit here and try to justify war when they are adversarial to our allies and claiming we have "enemies within" in reference to a nonexistent radical left, then it is very different. The war in this context matters, or have we lost nuance?
I don't agree with JFK's continuation of war in Vietnam, so fuck him, too. It also seems like you're twisting yourself a bit to equate Gerald Ford's sentiment, but hey, that's just my opinion, man.
So, the Democrats would be different as it relates to the current wars? Democratic Party cheered on the Ukraine war. Democratic Party voted for Iraq along with Republicans after 911. I think a single Democrat (who later voted for the Ukraine war ironically) voted against it. Both parties are devout backers of the current Middle East scheme. When it comes to war, the parties are practically indistinguishable.
>Democrats would be different as it relates to the current wars?
Threateninv a civil war isn't a partisan issue. I believe we need to go all the way back to Andrew Jackson to think about a time where a president is openly threatening it's own US cities. The Civil War under Lincoln was provoked first under the confederate states. I legitimately can't think of anything more recent than that, no matter the alignment.
We can talk about warmongering, but you just don't threaten your own people. At least not until they threaten the government. Because provoking and. attacking the people you lead is just profoundly stupid. There's no rebellion to quell, no land to annex. It's just a man pretending to be a dictator in the stupidest way possible.
What does this have to do with which party has more of a proclivity to go to war? Why does everything have to devolve back to Trump?
By the way, I think Trump‘s stupid comment about training the troops in cities was absolutely stupid and deserves to be called out. However, you would be foolish to think that other leaders prior to him haven’t thought similar thoughts, but just haven’t said it out loud.
If you're still thinking both sides are the same, then maybe the conversation isn't worth it. I think status quo Democrats are a real problem that, unfortunately, helped get us here. That said, I'm not going to have the both sides conversation for the millionth time because I cannot help but think you are arguing in bad faith.
I'll say it again. Context matters. They are adversarial to our allies and the "enemy within" is in reference to a nonexistent radical left.
Edit: also, "voted for the Ukraine war"? Excuse me? Do you think Russia should go unchecked? After WW2, Europe more or less, conceded to the American hegemony and military power in exchange for trade overreach. For better or for worse, Europe's success is important to American success and vice versa. Russia knows this and considers Ukraine a check on western power.
You have zero clue about my faith. The days of the peaceful anti-war Democratic party are gone, buddy. The sooner that the Democrats realize it and start to reverse course to where they once were, the sooner the Democratic Party can return to being a viable alternative to the Republican Party, particularly as it relates to foreign policy and war decisions.
Maybe a small time period during the hippie era near the end of the Vietnam war?
My main point is that I get tired of people from both sides of the aisle democrat/republican making comments about how the other side does or doesn’t do stuff that their own party does as well? It results in virtually no decent discussion and everybody pointing at each other, even though they basically want the same things. It is very cultish and unproductive.
Nixon was actually the anti-war candidate? That didn't quite workout that well but that's what he ran on...
Vietnam mostly started under Kennedy, Johnson massively escalated it and Humphrey still supported continuing it.
Then you had somebody like Eisenhower who wanted who both opposed prolonging Korea and was generally reticent about involving US in the Indochina War (not that he didn't misjudge the situation anyway)
Whose weapons are Ukraine using? Who trained Ukraine how to use these weapons? Where did Ukraine get the majority of the money that it’s using to blow up buildings in Russia and kill Russian soldiers? Where is the intelligence that Ukraine uses to determine its targets come from? Do you seriously think Ukraine has satellites in space monitoring?
The answer to every one of those questions is the United States.
You have clearly never been to the cities that the right is claiming to be rioting and looting, because if you had, you'd know that your claim is objectively false.
Because, supposedly, you are better than that, no? Or perhaps not, from the discourse being spewed the past year even here on HN I feel like the USA is definitely on a long, winding, dark path, you guys are firmly sitting on two opposing camps, escalating the aggressive and violent rhetoric at every turn, and there's no off-ramp.
It's unfortunate, and scary, to watch but there doesn't seem to be a way out, you will keep brewing this hatred until it explodes... I will need a lot of popcorn for that moment.
To emphasize, one side that has all governmental control is escalating aggressive and violent rhetoric. I can find a dozen quotes a week of GOP threats, I'm not sure I can find more than 1 or 2 a year from Dems. The actual violent actions also suggest the same.
This isn't really a "both sides" thing. One sides dragging the other down into the darkness.
> The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has added a message to the top of its website blaming the looming government shutdown on the "radical left".
That’s rich coming from a department that has intentionally withheld money from our most vulnerable people this year.
And actually enforcing it would be branded as "abusing government for political persecution". It's going to take someone with steel will to actually prosecute all of this crime.
Combined with the mass e-mails Trump appointees sent out within different departments, these are crimes under the Hatch Act, since they are using government resources for nakedly partisan purposes.
Yeah, it's no different than if the current administration printed up some flyers with "Overstaying your visa is a civil infraction and puts you at risk of deportation." I might not like them, but they wouldn't be a Hatch Act violation either.
Naturally this assumes the flyer doesn't have something else on it like a photoshopped picture of Trump's head on Rambo's body shaking hands with Jesus, which would be wrong on... many different levels.
Stop with these what about isms. People have done bad things all the time, that does not mean we need to allow the current group of people to continue destroying the world.
No, the law is called the "Affordable Care Act" precisely to avoid making it partisan with an active politician's name getting free advertising on the side.
If was Republicans who spent years promoting that unofficial nickname of "Obamacare" as an insult!
> [2011] Arguing that Obamacare is at this point a derogatory term, House Democrats want to ban the term from mailers sent from Congressional offices [saying it] violates the rules against sending mailers for "personal, partisan, or political reasons."
You are literally blaming the victim for something the other side did.
>It was Republicans who spent years promoting that unofficial nickname of "Obamacare" as an insult!
Thank you. It was picked up by many of the public as a popular term for a popular president. But I don't think I've ever heard any Democrat in policy call it Obamacare. Closest we get is maybe "Healthcare reform under Obama".
The original purpose of the term was always to stroke the flames of people who people who hated Obama. So that they associate Obama with "giving handouts".
In various other countries, if you can't pass a budget, your governance is in question to the point that you face a new election. i.e., it is on you to negotiate more flexibly to avoid this.
How many of said countries require more than a simple majority to pass a budget though? To my knowledge the US is quite the exception in that it requires a _special_ majority for such things.
A simple majority could be challenging if the government is formed via coalition, but if you have any examples where 1) a single party formed government and 2) a simple majority was the only requirement to pass a budget and 3) a budget failed to pass… then enlighten me by all means!
Here in Australia the (single party) government of the day was dismissed in 1975 after failing to secure a supply bill. The government was dismissed by the Governor General, the Crown's representative in Australia, and the event sparked a bit of a ruckus. Google: The Whitlam Dismissal.
There's lots of instances of our government requesting dissolution of the Houses following failure to secure votes, but in most cases they're for things other than operating expense bills, taken as proxies indicating the government does not have the confidence of the House to continue to act. Since failure to secure a bill is grounds for dissolving Parliament, it's not likely to be used for political grandstanding here.
Always good to come across fellow Australians in here!
I’d probably argue for an exception on that one, given the Whitlam government didn’t have a senate majority… but at the very least, I feel like a single case in the last 50 years is pretty supportive of my argument. The US government is on the verge of shutdown so often these days that I wonder how many people are desensitised to the situation!
How does failing to pass budget affect debt repayments? Could they simply end up defaulting sometime in future? That is not great outlook for a "reserve currency".
I mean it happened earlier this year in Tasmania, and it was absolutely for grandstanding purposes, given they'd had an election less than a year before.
Isn’t the super majority for getting over filibusters in the Senate? The catch is that it’s a Senate rule and the Senate sets is own rules via simple majority.
There’s nothing really stopping a government with simple majority control across all branches from doing away with the filibuster and ramming the budget through except internal party politics.
> a Senate rule and the Senate sets is own rules via simple majority.
Right, each house of the US legislature starts the session with a >50% vote to re-adopt a slowly mutating package of rules that it used last time and has carried forward for decades, defining how work is scheduled, what committees exist, how seniority is calculated, who gets the nice office with the window, etc.
This leads to the "nuclear option" of a special >50% vote to remove the underlying rule which imposes the larger vote-margin for certain situations.
The Australian Government can be dissolved if any bill fails to pass on second introduction, with some caveats. In most cases the executive (formed by the holder of the lower house majority) didn't also hold a simple majority in the Senate, or had defections or independent/minor party objections over the bill.
Single party forming government is already questionable democracy.
Edit: At least there is required more than simple majority for some things - as there needs to be compromise (consensus in society). But we see now the flaw that ruling party does not care about compromises.
However, while you're absolutely right about the optics, that's fundamentally not how the US government operates.
We are not a parliamentary system, and elections happen on a fixed schedule. Unless Congresspeople die or resign, this is the Congress we are stuck with until the midterm elections late next year.
We really do need some mechanism from the people itself to force a re-election. It can be as high as 75% to publicly convict, but it's clear that sometimes the people themselves need to speak now and not wait 2-6 years to fix bad faith actors. We see how much even 1 year of incompetence can do.
That only works when the governing party cares about governing.
The Republican Party has made it painfully clear over the past decade that they care more about winning than governing. The initial stages of this were when they vowed not to let any of Obama's priorities pass, to "make him a one-term president" (in their own words).
They have to win, and they have to punish the loser.
The democrats held the majority for a few months over 12 years ago. And that resulted in the biggest Healthcare policy in history.
Republicans have held thr majority for 3 years of trumps 5 so far. What does he have to show for it? I'm genuinely asking: what benefit has he provided to the people wit that unilateral power?
So your one thing that we've gotten is... Many more billions of tax payer dollars spent on the border and... ???
Because that's not a benefit. You just described the government taking more money from me.
Nothing is actually improved in my life, or your life, or anyone's life.
People have gotten so brainwashed that they're legitimately arguing that what's good for them doesn't matter. What matters is how many random people they don't know they manage to hurt.
Believing something is a benefit and something actually benefiting you are a different thing.
You can believe anything. You can believe the Earth is flat, I don't care.
> How arrogant. It's not up to you to decide what improves people's lives.
You're right, it's not up to me. Its up to reality.
Things getting worse for other people don't improve your life. That's not an opinion. That's not something I made up.
That's just how the world works.
Also, sympathetic? Really?
You want me to be sympathetic of you being not sympathetic? How short sighted and downright delusional do you have to be to not see the contraction in that?
Obviously a lack of sympathy isn't a position that deserves sympathy. Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing here?
>The majority of Americans think that the border situation/immigration has improved since Trump was elected
Okay, I ask again. What benefit has he provided for the people? Did the jobs come back? Is it safer to walk on the streets? has land value increased? Are groceries less scarce?
Border patrol seems to have long forgotten what the end goal is for the americans, and no one can seem to answer thta question anymore (for what I see are clearly obvious reasons).
>Trump also appointed the judges that got Roe overturned
Same question. Is illegal abortion improving the lives of everyday citizens.
>but Republicans don't approve of the ACA
Same question. Where's that money going that benefits the americans?
This is the whole issue. We can't point to lives being improved, only fears that were manufactured by the same rich elite being quelled. A society powered by fear isn't a democracy.
Again, where are the unborn fetuses roaming the streets comitting crimes? How does this improve your life?
You don't have to answer it here. I just really want people to think about themselves for once (ironically enough) and really ask what is wrong in their lives, instead of projecting what's wrong with everyone else. If your biggest problems are "other people exist and I don't like them", you must have a very cushy life. I envy that.
And no, I do not understand. They can't be pro-babies and then try to hide the Epstein files. That shows how far their principles really go.
You've misunderstood my understanding of Trump supporters with support for Trump. This makes sense since it seems you are incapable of that and so can't conceive it's possible.
If I thought abortion was murder, I'd be very happy that murder was illegal now. It would improve my life knowing that babies weren't being murdered. Is it really difficult for you to understand that?
Regarding Epstein, the fact that Democrats suddenly decided they gave a shit about Epstein after years of making fun of fringe Republicans for pushing the conspiracy way beyond what any evidence shows is bald faced politics.
I don't really care what you support. My point is that you haven't engaged at all in this discussion and have only attacked me instead of considering the questions I've asked. That does not go with the spirit of this site.
>the fact that Democrats suddenly decided they gave a shit about Epstein after years of making fun of fringe Republicans for pushing the conspiracy way beyond what any evidence shows is bald faced politics.
Here is the latest example. Instead of addressing my point you decide to deflect and attack. You may not be a Trump supporter, but this mentality fuels MAGA. If you don't want to be called a duck, stop quacking.
We're not even talking about politics anymore, you're just trying to instigate a flame war here, with me. Let's not break site guidelines, please.
>Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
>Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
This is the least productive Congressional session in history. It's a tiny majority. Also, the pretend Christian head of the House refuses to swear in Adelita Grijalva who was duly elected. The modern House has very little real power compared to the Senate.
Yes and Republicans deliberately didn't show up. If people watched CSPAN instead of getting their news from social media, it would be obvious to everyone who is responsible.
Context matters. Democrats want to compromise on not slashing Healthcare. I don't see a point in my interest why I'd disagree, therefore the GOP is being unreasonable.
You can even call it a selfish standpoint if you want. But if you're working class I fail to see why you'd game the democrats here. The Healthcare premiums hurt red states more anyway.
Doesn't even matter if it's 60 because the GOP has 3 members voting against. Meaning they couldn't even get 51 if they used budget reconciliation. BTW the reason they can't use budget reconciliation is because of a hole they dug themselves in.
If my mother or other older people i know who need Medicare, medicaid, ssn, snap lose it or see huge increases while taxes are reduced for the top 5% while trump enriches himself while congress remains paid and insured ... I'm gonna have to start getting involved in someway ... these (my mother and friends) people are not lazy assholes.
If my ssn is screwed with which I've paid into for decades ... because of interest on debt and other basic financial mismagement ... there's gonna be push back.
The overreach of the right is building cases for nyc next lefty mayor (likely) and Sanders, aoc, Robert reichs of the world btw ... too far left can have its own other problems. We don't need that either.
We are in serious need of competence and getting the basics done right for the right reasons.
While i could go on at length about trump's own rank stupidity we all must see the root cause is an instiutionally corrupt and incompetent congress. That power vacuum is filled by trump now.. but it's congress that bears the ultimate responsibility. Democrats are not criminally so flagrant or culpable but democrat policy and no street smarts didn't help. They are a very weak compeitor.
If you think that any of the names you mentioned are remotely as far left as the current administration is far right, you have been swallowing propaganda whole.
@danaris hey get with the program. The morons in congress have pissed way the last 30 years in the kind of bs you give above. Nobody cares anymore. Who has edge or where the edge is between the two parties.. nobody cares. Whether one sides "facts" are propaganda or not ... nobody cares.
The salient points are just two:
- extremes make extremes and neither is good for the US
- congress needs competent technocratic solutions to budget, debt, and other things in the practical realm of running a government.
Pretty boys on tv talking s** means nothing. The fiest 40 minutes of the breakfast club is the problem.
> - extremes make extremes and neither is good for the US
Which would be more salient if there were, in fact, an extreme left in the US.
Think about this for just a minute: What would extremes on both sides look like?
On the left, it would likely look like a platform of jailing or murdering all billionaires, confiscating the wealth of everyone above, say, $10M and redistributing it to the populace, nationalizing all major businesses, etc.
On the right, it would likely look like a platform of jailing, deporting, or murdering all non-white people, enforcing a specific view of Christianity on everyone, and redistributing wealth from the poor to the wealthy.
One of these sounds a hell of a lot like the platform of one of our major parties, and it sure as hell isn't the Democratic Party.
At this point, the root cause analysis leads to a highly efficient right wing media scape. Efficient because it’s given up on accuracy, and optimized on narrative effectiveness. Trump has a 60%+ approval rating amongst republicans right now, down from 77 in June July (iirc) and even higher in march.
There is no healing a wound, if the source of aggravation is constantly present.
It is also hard to categorize it as a wound, if all Fox and the right media ecosystem is doing, is simply exercising their right to free speech. They just happen to be in lock step with their party, and they’ve spent decades aiming to fill seats, and ensure bipartisan leaning politicians get ousted.
None of this is obviously wrong or illegal, it’s simply focusing on the rules as opposed to the spirit and the norms.
They are “winning”, against science, norms, public opinion and more.
This is the mountain that has to be climbed, and most people are still under the impression that this is business as usual, or that this is simply the pendulum of history moving in the opposite direction.
ACA subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year, and democrats want to extend that. That in combination to cuts to medicare and medicaid in the BBB tax cuts that won't hit until next year, while not directly related to the shutdown, it is one of few venues for leverage in negotiations. Especially after GOP promises of no cuts in medicare and medicaid which were obviously broken with that bill.
You really think that the public will connect the dots.
Trump's "big beautiful bill" makes a lot of those painful cuts. But it also keeps them from taking effect until too late in 2028 to affect the next election. Between now and then, the standard Republican line can be, "Democrats told you that all this will be cut. Have your benefits been cut?" They get to use that in 2026 and 2028. The cuts will have arrived by 2030, but the bill will be old news. There will be a new controversy. And people's opinions of the bill won't change.
If true the dems should allow the government to stay closed until this can be fixed. They need some street smarts: flush out the BS now. Voters need to know what the heck is going on. I hate to write it but we may need visit a crappy local minimum (accept a crap show short term) to move back to a higher maximum than we are now.
The money the US (that's us folks) spend on medicine is crimally stupid. Heck I had doctor in laws.. one runs medstar in dc both of who have nothing nice to say about the finance/insurance side of medicine.
Now, I hasten to add let's not throw the baby out with the bath water: doctors and nurses are generally people who want to help through science, and that's a good thing.
The BBB doesn't cut shit. The biggest cut is $1 trillion in Medicaid over 10 years. Medicaid spending was $894 billion in 2023, up from $721 billion (CPI adjusted) in 2015: https://www.statista.com/statistics/245348/total-medicaid-ex.... We're not even cutting it back halfway to what it was in Obama's last year, when everything was peachy.
The USD has inflated 36% since 2015. So the 2023 budget was already an effective budget cut from 2015 of almost $100 billion (10%).
So we're effectively cutting the program budget by 25% what it was in Obama's last year - and that's after kneecapping it several times legislatively WRT things like the individual mandate and before going into the rapidly rising inflation we're seeing this year leading into that decade.
The BBB doesn't cut shit. It just cuts trillions of dollars.
Do y'all actually hear yourself or what?
Also: it's not JUST the cutting that's the problem.
We're doing these cuts and getting NOTHING in return. Literally nothing.
Do you know how much money we're saving? -2 trillion dollars. You are actually paying to lose money. Its legitimately unbelievable just how shit this fiscal policy is.
The problem is a GOP compromise is just empty air. After the bill passes, the president will just cut stuff out of it on his own, and Congress will do nothing.
Blatantly wrong, since a focus of theirs is extending the current ACA funding from the previous budget which the current proposed budget doesn't have. Do you repeat the talking points sincerely without understanding them, or disingenuously with an understanding of why they're false?
I mean, do you understand how many pages and details there are in a federal budget, do you think it's plausible that an incoming administration wouldn't make hundreds of changes from the budget of an administration of the opposite party? That's a plausible scenario?
I don't think it's possible to predict this, even with a fully stable and rational White House. It's often impossible to know how things can or will backfire.
If that's actually beneficial to Trump then none of this matters, because the Republicans can just shut it down themselves no matter what the democrats want or do.
Meanwhile, what power might this give him that he hasn't already seized without resistance from Congress? He's taken spending power and partially claimed taxation power already. He's been illegally firing people his entire term so far, often en masse. So what's the "more power"?
Joe Biden didn't cut Healthcare spending. Do you even know why this CR is failing? Did you already forget the highly contentious megabill passed that no Democrat agreed with? They barely eeked out a majority, now when they need 20 more to agree to "continue" that it doesn't work out. Surprise.
The Republicans only require 50 votes to get rid of the 60 vote rule. They can do it any time they want, but then the jig would be up, and they wouldn't be able to blame Democrats any more.
They think it's better for them politically to keep blaming the Democrats than to take responsibility for their own choices. I really can't blame them, they have made some pretty bad choices recently.
Back in normal times, the Democrats and Republicans would have been able to negotiate something, because everybody assumed the president would obey whatever budget they passed. But now even if they negotiate something, the president just cuts whatever he doesn't like, and the Republicans in Congress won't hold him to account.
"There isn't any substantive reason why there ought to be a government shutdown. This is something that has been done routinely, as I said, 13 different times when the Democrats had the majority. But we are not going to be held hostage for over $1 trillion in new spending on a continuing resolution," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the vote.
From what I understand the majority of the desired spending is on welfare for illegal immigrants. If true, then it's reasonable to push back against it I think.
The Democrats are pushing to continue more generous federal subsidies to help Americans afford Obamacare policies and to reverse deep cuts to Medicaid contained in Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda package. But neither of those changes would provide health coverage to undocumented immigrants, since they aren’t eligible for either program.[1]
That is certainly what JD Vance is claiming. He knows it's not true, but he keeps saying it because he also knows he can lie to his supporters and they either won't care, or won't actually try to find out the truth.
Same with his lie that there are liberal groups funding people like the Utah shooter. It's complete bullshit and he knows it.
He is one of the most sleazy people in politics right now, and that's saying something.
So, we now have an assertion from you, and an assertion from the GP, and neither of you has supplied any evidence for your claims. Would one of you do so?
But about your last paragraph: A post is written once, but read many times. If you make your readers look for the information, then N people have to do searches. If you search, it only has to happen once. So it's much more efficient for the post author to do so.
And if you don't when you're contradicting someone else, and neither of you supplies evidence, then it looks like "he said, she said". If the evidence is on your side, show it.
You would be assuming wrong. The administration is lying, because otf they told the truth, nobody would support them. They are fucked and they are holding on by their fingernails. It's only a matter of time.
For the viewers at home, CNN is not remotely an "arm of the Democratic Party". They're owned by Warner Bros (and are one of the few American media conglomerates not directly beholden to a single partisan billionaire).
Pretty much every single bias rater puts CNN as "slightly left leaning", and they are regularly under fire from the left for facilitating the normalization of alt-right or far right rhetoric.
I'd love to hear what media sources you call unbiased.
Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House. They didn't bother to show up to avert the shutdown. The House convened for 2 minutes and refused to allow any discussion yesterday.
If you have to use the "this hasn't happened since X" formulation for dramatic effect, at least do it when the time scale is actually impressive. Last time it happened was 7 years ago? That's not even 2 presidencies
A lot of banks/credit unions offer 0% loans to federal employees during government shutdowns. Some of them even offer this to customers who join after the shutdown began.
Granted, it is weird to think about living in a country where this is a finanical product that so many institutions just have.
Even without that, the shutdown actually needs to last a while before it actually becomes a problem for forloughed workers.
Despite the shutdown, the October 1 paychecks (covering work done between September 7 and September 20) will still go out, as they have long since been sent to the payment processors.
The October 15 paychecks (covering September 21 - October 4) should go out with a slightly reduced amount the unpaid 4 days during the shutdown. This would require the agency in question to properly follow shutdown protocols and submit timecards/payroll data to the processors prior to the shutdown. Since this is not the routine process, I imagine some mistakes will be made here, so some government workers will probably miss the October 15 paycheck. Others may face hardship from the reduced payment; but even people living paycheck to paycheck typically stretch the paycheck out across the pay period, so will be able to get through most of the period on the reduced check (and can probably defer/reduce some spending).
Major payroll lapses will not kick in until the October 29 paycheck. If we reach that point, this would be the second longest shutdown in history [0]. Even then, most Americans have an existing line of credit that offers 0% interest loans for between 30 and 60 days depending on when they are in the billing cycle [1].
[0] Not that I would be too suprised by this. The longest shutdown occured under President Trump, while the republicans controlled the Senate; and had controll of the House for the first part of the shutdown.
[1] Except for those who have a revolving balance, in which case and additional spending starts accruing interest immedietly; and any delay in paying down the existing balance also incurs interest. And, when these loans do gather interest, it is at a quite high rate.
> Granted, it is weird to think about living in a country where this is a finanical product that so many institutions just have.
I suppose it's like working for a company with a really weird build or CI/CD process that breaks regularly, to the point where many devs in the company have a prepared "the build process broke again" workaround script ready.
People are generally pretty intelligent, au least until they get into politics
I'm really tired of band-aiding solutions and not properly addressing the core issues behind the broken everything. Broken windows, and we're running out of duct tape.
You don't think people with the planning skills and intelligence to real-time coordinate and sequence air traffic have the skills to foresee an impending event and start planning, coordinating and sequencing their personal responses to that event?
You seem to be interpreting assertions of fact as some sort of approval for the current state of things.
The commenter above is saying that ATCs by and large are probably not living paycheck to paycheck. He isn't saying that the shutdown is super neat.
Further up, I was clarifying that ATCs will get paid once the shutdown ends, which is a world of difference from the other way to interpret "they aren't getting paid". Likewise I am not making a value judgement about the situation, I am trying to be helpful.
>You seem to be interpreting assertions of fact as some sort of approval for the current state of things.
You seem to be ignoring the human element of the situation in lieu of pushing the logistics of it. Something the GP was directly combatting.
No, the airlines aren't shutting down. We're further weakening the stability that will lead to the next major crash, though. Be it literal or otherwise.
If me pointing out that furloughed employees receive back pay requires that I couch it in explicit sympathy for their situation, we're doomed to talk about peripheral issues.
I agree, we're doomed. Yes, I see even in this post I see people cheering on the closing of hospitals and the burdens of workes increasing just because billionaires don't want to pay taxes. So I can't by default assume that "they'll get backpay anyway it doesn't matter" isn't uyet another dismissal.
I want to point out that that a new and dangerous kind of "shutdown" was already happening before today, just in a patchy partisan manner. [0][1] In a nutshell:
1. Democrats and Republicans reach a typical legislative compromise with enough votes to pass a law, declaring that federal government shall do both [A] and [B].
2. President Trump: "Meh, I just don't wanna do [B], nobody do [B] or else you're fired."
3. Republican legislators: "Sure, we didn't want [B] anyway, we'll sit back and let Trump break the law without impeaching him. We'll can spend that money for something else we like later."
So... what's the point of Democrats compromising on a package of budget laws, when the Republican party keeps conspiring to break the very laws they agreed-to but don't like?
The Democratic party has realized that negotiating doesn't get them anything. Evenn if the Republicans agree to their demands, they won't actually follow through.
This is a great point, and it's something that the Founding Fathers really just kicked the can down the road for succeeding generations to find out. The executive doing so is technically in violation of the Take Care Clause ("shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"), and SOME judicial proceedings since then have found that the Executive can't use under-spending to deny or delay a congressional act or program (Train v. City of New York, 1975) - but it's still something that's up in the air if we have a complicit Congress AND judiciary.
But then again, with a complicit Congress and Judiciary - what ISN'T in the air is a shorter list.
>what's the point of Democrats compromising on a package of budget laws, when the Republican party keeps conspiring to break the very laws they agreed-to but don't like?
At this point, think of it as continuing to gather the moutains of supprot for the next impeachment trials. For when a scandal happens that Trump can't recover from. From if something untimely happens and power shifts. his won't just be forgotten to history.
It's slow and painful, but when words don't work, you point to actions. Trump has done a lot of actions out of the blue that will bite back had when the power is ceded.
> On September 23, 2025, Grijalva was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election to succeed her father, defeating Republican nominee Daniel Butierez.
Trump's decision to hide the list was the first time that I've seen MAGA anything split with Trump.
Proof that it contains egregious crimes by Trump, really could widen that. Doubly so given that these are crimes which Trump can still be prosecuted. Particularly since there is no statute of limitations on many sex trafficking crimes.
Could it widen it enough to allow Republican politicians to reject Trump? That's a good question. But I do find it hopeful that Ted Cruz, who has been so good at folding to Trump that he now resembles a piece of origami, was actually able to stand up and mock Trump's administration for his attempt to crush free speech by shutting down Jimmy Kimble. If Trump loses a chunk of his base, maybe some R politicians will remember what it's like to have a spine.
There are plenty of politicians with R in the name.
That their policies don't look like Republican policies of 30 years ago shouldn't surprise. Republican policies of 30 years ago didn't look much like Republican policies of 60 years ago.
The current ones don't fail to be Republican. It is just that Republican now means something different than it used to.
The same exact comments could be made about Democrats. For example look at Joe Biden's legislative record. He was President as a champion of DEI and LBGTQ+ rights. But back in the Clinton era, he sponsored a crime bill that put a ton of blacks in prison, and sponsored DOMA, a bill that blocked federal recognition of gay marriages.
Certainly the new era of republican thought has policies and principles. The main principle that informs all the others is "win at all costs" below that is a variety of white nationalism and economic populism.
I've seen it just as split during Jan 6th. You can look at 4chan's archive for /pol/, as well as the "thedonald.win" website, and even r/askTrumpSupporters and r/Conservative - all on January 6th 2021. You will see a fragment and fracture that I would personally attest was even stronger than the Epstein files meltdown.
There was clear, genuine shock even on the right over that event. It lasted a few months, at most, until their talking heads managed to "catapult the propaganda" sufficiently, and various conspiracy theories were seeded, fertilized, watered, and took root to give people something to believe other than their own eyes and ears.
That brief span of perhaps a few months was probably the last window of time we had to save the US—maybe, still would have been a long shot. But nothing was even attempted.
> "Trump's decision to hide the list was the first time that I've seen MAGA anything split with Trump."
There's a lot of diversity of views among those who might have voted for Trump. For instance his nonstop backing of Israel and decision to continue the war in Ukraine have been divisive, as was his decision to bomb Iran. In general Republican views are not like the equal but opposite of Democrat views. There tends to be much more diversity on most topics.
For instance you probably think the average Republican is pro-gun and anti-abortion. In reality only 24% of Republicans completely oppose abortion [1] and only 27% think gun laws should be less strict. [2] The party has become extremely heterogeneous. I suspect this is largely because of people like me. I do not consider myself conservative, but am highly supportive of equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, opposed to political correctness and war, and so on. In other words a pretty much typical liberal of 20 years ago, but one who no longer really fits in the modern Democrat demographic.
I think it's fairly obvious that nobody is ever going to be prosecuted over the Epstein stuff. He seemed to have had dirt on basically everybody. So I suspect everybody will finger point and imply things to score political points, but in the end it's the pot calling the kettle black, and so I doubt anybody would have the gall to escalate it to the point of prosecutions.
32% of all Republicans also support universal healthcare as well. That alongside your examples just shows that there are not the most rational bunch in general and suffer form severe cognitive dissonance.
> In other words a pretty much typical liberal of 20 years ago, but one who no longer really fits in the modern Democrat demographic.
Sure. But its hardly conceivable that such a person would fir in the MAGA party either.
Of course even someone like Mussolini was a socialist activist for years so people's views do change...
But how many people do the stereotypes of MAGA actually apply to? I certainly haven't met that person. But I have met a fair chunk of people who, for various reasons, found themselves on a different side of the aisle than might have otherwise been the case.
Trump for instance won the majority of Hispanic males (and nearly females as well) and even started to kind-of-sort-of make black males a competitive demographic. That's still an exaggeration since it was only like 22%, but that's still far greater than usual.
But now imagine if people made their politics public - the majority of Hispanic males would be running around with their MAGA cap and more than 1 in 5 black males doing the same. It'd become clear that the stereotypes are mostly just nonsense.
Then you simply have not been paying attention. The Republican base was full throatedly calling for the release of the files mere months ago. They were sitting "on Bondi's desk." Releasing them then would not be seen as caving. Your argument is nonsensical.
My take is democrats called the republicans' "bluff" (because republicans never actually intended to release everything) and backed them into a corner of having to actively oppose the release because democrats don't.
Now, even if those files end up being a nothingburger (because republicans will just shrug off whatever makes them look bad), it'll be on republicans if they let the release happen.
My main point is: republicans aren't opposing the release because "they're on the list", they're opposing it because it'll look like a loss if the release happens.
I thought there was difference because I thought your stance was that republicans are afraid that the files themselves contain things that make them look bad (eg Trump or some other big-name republican was mentioned in them), and I don't think that's the case. Edit: well, I don't think they're afraid of it, not that there's nothing that makes them look bad.
> These mental gymnastics must be exhausting.
Not sure what makes you feel that's a necessary thing to say, TBH.
>"I don't think [Republicans] are afraid of [The Epstein Files]"
With the scope of approach the House, Senate, and Executive cabinet are taking to avoid any release or mention of the Epstein files, I truly believe anyone who says such a thing are either not presently politically-literate, or are less than honest with themselves and others.
I simply see no other avenue, and I've heard no coherent logic that steelmans the Republican position on this matter for ANY motivation besides fear of, at the very least, members of their cohort being implicated for child sex crimes. Nonetheless, I'll be happy to hear a shot taken again at it.
I'll accept accusations of being too cynical, but I come at it from the "(lack of) past consequences" side.
For the past ~25 years I've paid attention, and in particular since 2008, virtually no scandal has cost the GOP any tangible support.
I see no reason to expect that anything in these files would have different results, so I see no reason for republicans to think differently and fear the release based on the contents of said files.
Whatever comes out would get brushed off with the mix of "deep state", "lying victims", "locker room talk", "circumstantial means nothing", etc, we've already seen, and it would be effective.
I'm cynical but I also see the numbers. This is by far one of trumps worst polling issues. It may not be the Watergate release that ends the term, but this will absolutely tank the GOP's midterms and add more fuel to a congress that might want to try to impeach Trump again in 2027.
The numbers as is are really bad for so much of the GOP. Maybe no one holds them accountable now, but these sentiments aren't easily forgotten when it's out in the blue. Ford pardoned Nixon nearly Day One of taking over and that pretty much forever sealed his chances at re-election.
I guess my problem is that I'm strictly in a "I'll believe it when I see it (and no sooner)" mindset when it comes to election results (as opposed to polls).
> Do you really think that would be enough to change anything?
If anything could change something, it would be these files. The Epstein case/list along with deep state child trafficking conspiracies in general is a foundational pillar of MAGA. Trump doing a 180 and saying the list doesn't matter was like the Pope saying Jesus was no big deal. He had to know this from a strategy standpoint which makes it even weirder they are trying to hide them.
As a financial examole: I know a very famous content creator from the pre-google YouTube days who did highly edited skits. Lots of drama happened, as is the course, and he's faded from the public eye. Outside of making a few videos 2 years ago, he hasn't posted anything in 9 years. His patron hasn't updated in just as long. I'm not even sure if he tweeted this is year.
He still has 140k subs on YouTube. He peaked at $4000/month on patron but still makes $200 today /after 9 years of barely snyghubv)
You're never hitting zero after a certain point unless you shit down yourself. Joe Rogan is still popular but Alex Jones is definitely hit
That can't be predicted. One side or the other knuckles under at some point, but there is no schedule.
> How often do they happen?
A couple times every decade. Often enough that it one can see trends. The longest is also the most recent: 35 days in 2018. That was Trump's first term. Obama had one as well. They've been trending longer since the 1980's.
Don't worry: just under the gun, they managed to expense the travel of 800 generals from all over the world to hear the ramblings of a drunkard with questionable pocket-square taste and a dottard who suggested the military use American cities as training grounds to fight "the war from within". Also, I'm confident that the premiums for Congress's superior health insurance have been paid.
You should look up on how coups work. Unless they want to end up like the south korean president, they should size up the military. That’s what it is about and if you are working on a coup, it’s worth every penny especially that the public is the one paying for it.
What? You do know "sizing up the military" is exactly why the South Korean president was ousted, right? He tried to declare martial law and parliament completely shut that down. Not exactly the thing you want to announce when you've had hostile neighbors for 70 years.
Let them dig their own grave if true, but I'm confused what yirre getting at.
Sizing up the military is going/inviting the military leaders multiple times to figure out if they will stand with you in the case of a coup. That’s not what the South Korean president did. Many people here confuse a coup to a direct seizing of power and the president declaring himself a dictator. A coup is fast but gradual seizing of power that starts by seizing one element (ie: law enforcement of a state, a senator, an official, etc.) gradually to seizing the courts.
That seems useless to me because people can indeed lie (this admin knows that all too well). Or change their mind when on the heat of the battlefield.
And of course, it's peak paranoia. You can't be performing a hostile, illegal siezure of power and call anyone who wants to follow the law an insurrectionist. The Consistution defines that for us.
old GOP standby; always appear to be playing defense, always be flabbergasted by those rascally democrats. Everything bad is always the result of the "radical libs" doing something. The details, and even the very veracity of the claims are immaterial. The trick is to sell, like a pro-wrestling match.
To be fair, the dems have given a go at a similar tactic, since their last 3 presidential campaigns had the implicit slogan of "At least we aren't those guys".
the 2-party system devolves into some kinda halfway dumb Hegelian dynamic where you are always opposed to what the other guy is doing while simultaneously being dependent on them for your existence.
Third parties did emerge and replace dominant parties, but rarely - say, once a century or less. It's hard to tell the difference between "does not happen any more" and "continues to happen at that rate".
third parties are very weak in first past the post systems. Anyone who thinks about the game theory quickly comes to the conclusion to not vote third party. With easier access to mass market news more people can be informed of that so less people vote third party
It does occasionally happen, though. e.g. in Britain Labour replaced the Liberals in the 20s and 30s. Conservatives got almost destroyed last election if polls stay were they are they will likely be replaced by Farage's party.
France maybe doesn't fully count but when turnout is very high they are almost FPTP. Also the second round when it happens is usually three way and sometimes even four way. And their party system is about as hectic as it gets (i.e. most PR countries in Europe are much more stable)...
Basic game theory, as well as the nature of the problemset. working with 30k items is very different from 30m items. You need different algorithms to efficietly solve each one.
This will sound very mean, but when you open up your voterbase to more people, you open up democracy to be swayed more by pathos rather than ethos/logos. An educated, informed voterbase can make smart decisions and have a 3rd party rise up and defy the philosophy of the splinter vote.
Now, the US is 300m+ people with a voter base of about 170m. the searches for "is Biden running for president" on elecion day spiked more than the day he stepped down. Sentiment at this size adjusts too slowly to have a 3rd party rise at the national level, and if one gains momentum, the panic of a lost election will scamble all that progress.
If we want 3rd parties, we need to vote to enact voting that ancourages it, like ranked choice voting.
The American electoral system makes this near impossible.
Certainly for congressional elections, at least. Presidential elections might be more feasible if still highly far fetched. Of course at this point any 3rd party candidate is more likely to split the left-wing and moderate electorate than the radical/MAGA voters who usually don't really carry about specific policies or stances on most economic or other important issues.
You need 60 votes in the senate to pass a budget so having a majority doesnt equal having a budget. The argument is generally that the majority party won a mandate from the people and therefore should be able to pass laws they want and when they cant the minority party gets blamed. Pretty much every government shut down in recent US history has been blamed on the minority party, dems won a lot of political points when the government shut down under biden.
Well historically Republican voters are absolutely supportive of the principle itself (i.e. minority party undermining the vote on the budget). So obviously that's what they voted for..
If Republicans cared about the government shutting down they would have made efforts to negotiate or compromise. They’re just as responsible. In fact, Trump seemed pretty gleeful about the extra people he could fire if a shutdown happened.
Hate to break it to you, but: Government shutdowns don't result in a replacement government. When it's over, the same one comes back. Worse (if you think the government is terrible), parts of it continue even during the shutdown.
Here's a collection for dang/tomhow, as this is (as it always has in the past) going to collect duplicates as everyone posts their own news source's version:
No, it's entirely true despite you weirdly canvassing this thread spouting your lies. The Republicans have the majority. They can pass any budget they want, whenever they want, with no cooperation required. They (and you) now want to hide behind the figleaf of the filibuster again despite having mostly finished it's rightful gutting earlier this year, but that too is purely a Senate rule which can be tossed with 51 votes.
So it's on the GOP, 100%. If they want minority party votes, then they need to negotiate with said minority party duh. If instead they want to govern alone (which all actions and words indicate is true) then they must govern alone.
> They can pass any budget they want, whenever they want, with no cooperation required.
Due to the filibuster rule in the senate, the clean CR could not continue without 60 votes. It's amazing how people who graduate from high-school are unaware of the basics of US politics.
>Due to the filibuster rule in the senate, the clean CR could not continue without 60 votes. It's amazing how people who graduate from high-school are unaware of the basics of US politics.
What's amazing is how somebody who claims to have graduated from high school is so mind locked into their narrative and so enraged at anything to the contrary that they can't even make it to the very next sentence which addressed this!
And now you're pretending republicans aren't actively destroying institutions as fast as they can, let alone merely not wanting to. And that they haven't actively gutted the filibuster repeatedly, including again not just this year but literally earlier this month [0, 1]! And dead silence on massive Trump violations of the impoundment act, since in Flanked-evergl World "wanting to fund government" = wanting to cut whatever the POTUS feels like regardless of Congress whenever he feels like it!
Whew. And this is putting aside that they're demanding votes to make up for their own missing votes while literally saying they will offer zero compromises to win those votes whatsoever. This is all 100% on the Republicans and only the Republicans.
The term for what you're doing is "gaslighting" btw.
The people worst off are Federal contractors. They are effectively unemployed during these periods. Many actual employees, like me in previous shutdowns, are essentially on irregular paid time off. In theory it is unpaid, but it is always retroactively paid in practice and everyone knows this. People that are “critical” kind of get a raw deal because they still have to work while people deemed less essential don’t have to work.
It is unfortunate that it happens but I wouldn’t get overly caught up in the theater of it all.