Comments

1

Gotta agree here. Should be a simple one for the Dems. Won't be surprised to see them blow it though.

2

That's clearly correct. And Trump has escalated this in such a way that he can't even make a deal to get out of it - he would have to give something to the Democrats that would make the yahoos over in the Breitbart comment section squeal in agony which defeats the entire purpose of the exercise, from his perspective.

That's why he'll stage his special two hour episode "Declare a national emergency" before long.

3

I tend to agree, but no matter how this ends, Trump will declare victory and we’ll be right back here soon enough.

4

The only thing that might be worth it is the immediate resignation of Trump and Pence.

5

Do not waiver Dems! This wall shit is wrong and stupid, and nearly everyone knows it.

6

So... If he has no hope, what does he have to lose. Will opening government gain him a single vote? Does his constituency believe he's hurting them by keeping it closed? So far his base his crediting him (as opposed to blaming him) for the shut down.

What on earth makes you think he will blink? How would it be in his interest? It would only erode support among his base.

Democrats need to ask: Is it really worth having 800,000 people go unpaid to make a political point with 0.098% of the budget (when most of those ass hats have already voted to spend more on physical barriers at the border in the recent past)?

7

Smarter move would be to let him build the damn thing and spend the next two years pointing out how it doesn't work and blaming him for it... If you really believe it wont work.

8

What? Shut it Cher, and don’t give in Dems.

9

By his own admission it is Trump who is responsible for those families suffering.
Good time for some solidarity here and let this thing plays out.

10

"Will opening government gain him a single vote?"

Wrong question. The fault lines under strain are in the Senate. It won't take much movement before Trump is forced to actually veto a bill to re-open the government and then he's screwed. He'll declare his absurd emergency before that happens.

11

@6/7: It's not just a "political point," it's a practical strategy to keep this asshole from making yet more unreasonable demands. Other Republicans who actually have constituencies beyond "the base" are eventually going to crack and demand he bargain with the Dems.

And your notion that the Dems can spend two years explaining how it doesn't work fails, because the people who most need to see it doesn't work will never admit it, no matter what data they are shown. They know it works in their hearts, or at least the awful, gangrenous masses in their chests they call "hearts." Furthermore, two years isn't enough time to really be able to tell. Trump will trumpet about how he "fixed the border" and "got things done," and that will be that.

12

"He and his party lost the 2018 midterm election massively. "

But only half as massively as Obama and the democraps lost in 2010.

And when Ruth finally croaks you will see how Trumps massive loss puts another young constitutionalist on the bench for the next 40 years.

May we suffer such massive defeats every year....

13

@10
Harder he digs in, the more his base will love him. If a vetos a bipartisan bill to attempt to fulfill a campaign pledge, they will love him even more.

Since all he has is his base, he has no reason to moderate his position... Because there is no opportunity for him to pick up votes by doing so. Only to lose votes by doing so.

He'll declare an emergency and build his wall. It'll be a terrible precedent. And in six (or two) years President Warren will declare an "Environmental Emergency' to do something even less popular...

15

@12
After the Kavanaugh circus, any defeat that brings a stronger Republican majority in the Senate looks like a victory to me... BTW: Has anyone seen RBG outside of her oxygen tent lately?

16

The question that may start to catch up with Democrats in the next week or so goes something like this... How many of the 800,000 people not getting a paycheck will think its worth not getting a paycheck to keep Trump from having a wall and who's constituents are they? How many paychecks do they miss before they start tell their Representatives: "Fuck it. Give the crazy man what he wants. I need to pay my fucking mortgage." And how many of those Representatives are going to be Democrats vs. Republicans?

17

@16 What you write makes some sense but I think there's some danger in that we've already framed this as being on the shoulders of the Dems.

18

She's always been one not hesitant to cher her opinion.

19

The Reagan 80's question was "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" This POTUS's official question to the American public is: "Don't you just hate Mexico?" If that wall goes up, the obvious answer will be, "Why Yes, of course we hate Mexico." If every govt could turn their own country into a fortress against the kinds of foreigners they hate the most, they would probably try. And build walls and put electric fences up and have guards with German Shepherds and that whole WW2 cliched movie. But why would we need to do that? Why would anyone think they needed to do that?

20

@5 lastlight, @8 LavaGirl, & @9 kallipugos: Agreed and seconded. Dems, DO NOT back down now! Deport all that is Trump / Pence instead.

21

Oh.... And. For the record. Cher has never been, and will never be, wrong. Ever. At all.

22

I'm at least a little torn in that I could see that stubborn fuckwad allowing this thing to extend on for several months at least, at which point shit could absolutely become dire. On the other hand, the analogy to a terrorist's demands is apt and it's not hard to see why our foreign policy mandate regarding such matters exists. He should just acquiesce. He himself said (correctly, sadly) that he could shoot a person in broad daylight and not lose any support.

I'd not be surprised if it were the air traffic controllers that brought it to a head. A coordinated strike that grounded air travel would bring about the goddamn apocalypse.

23

@12,
Agree. The GOP did not lose "the 2018 midterm election massively". It was a blue ripple and not a blue wave. It's a pretty typical result for mid-term elections against the party that holds the Executive branch. The GOP gained 2 Senate seats and increased their majority from 51 to 53 seats. That's significant for the next associate Justice Trump nominates (it will be a woman) before Jan. 2021.

And whether one agrees with Cher's political opinion or not, I don't believe celebrities' opinions in general should be taken seriously. Least not by intellectuals such as Charles. Nope, I sure don't.

25

@24 blip: I know, right? In brighter news: SCOTUS Ruth Bader Ginsburg is recovering from her cancer, is expected to return to the US Supreme Court in a few days, and there is no sign of any remaining cancer. Go, RBG, GO!

26

@24, 25 Yes.
Please Dems, don't cave. Keep letting this asshole dig his grave. I really hope he doesn't open the IRS so his constituents won't get their refunds. I do feel sorry for the furloughed workers, but they will get back pay eventually. I really feel bad for the janitors and food service workers and other non-government providers who won't get back pay, but still he must be confronted with reality. He is not the dictator.

27

It is not blackmail.
It is Democracy.
Trump ran on an emphatic and explicit pledge to protect the border and the American People hired him to do just that.

28

24-26

because the Left is playing TicTacToe while Trump plays 3D Chess....

Sure, he could have gotten funding from Ryan, but by waiting for the Dems to take the House he either:
1- forces THEM to give him what he wants, revealing their weakness and disheartening their base
or
2- can blame Pelosi/Schummer for thwarting him and the will of the American People, firing up his base

Heads he wins, trail you lose

and, btw, his base don't mind if the shutdown last 10 years
shut it down or burn it down...

Viva La Revolución, Baby!

29

When gov't shuts down, Congress and Senate should also stay on the job with no pay until it is resolved.

30

@28 raises an interesting question. Do you all think Donald Trump knows how to play chess? Like, I'm sure he's familiar with the general rules, the objective is to capture the opponent's king, pawns are largely sacrificial, etc... But I wonder if he knows all the rules and each piece's moves?

It's entirely possible he was taught it at a young age by a friend or family member, as most folks have been. But there's a zero percent chance he'd have reached an age of autonomous decision making, say 14 or 15 years old, and voluntarily undertaken the game, what with all of it's quirky rules, restrictions and thoughtful decision making requirements.

I just spent five minutes on google looking into it and was unable to find anything conclusive. He's engaged in a few photo-ops in front of a board unsurprisingly, though that's the best I could do. I guess if someone had a gun to my head forcing a guess, I'd say he could play a game without having to forfeit out of pure ignorance of the rules, though I'd certainly not place a wager on it one way or other.

33

I heard the theory that Trump is forcing the shutdown because he's terrified Mueller is near the end of his investigation, and he knows that funding for federal courts is only going to last another week or so. After that, there won't be anyone around to receive Mueller's final report. It's self-serving and nihilistic enough that I can believe it's the real motivator here.

"He himself said (correctly, sadly) that he could shoot a person in broad daylight and not lose any support."
@22: Exactly. All he has to do is sign any deal to get past this, and his drooling supporters will scream "greatest dealmaker of all time!" despite the fact that he's directly to blame for the problem in the first place. His base is going to blame the Democrats regardless of how it gets sorted out. They prove every day that they are immune to facts.

@30: Trump would never forfeit out of ignorance of the rules. He's the very soul of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and as such, wouldn't have the self-awareness to do that. He'd be like playing against a pigeon.

34

Where Cher, and a number of people here are seriously wrong is in thinking of this as a contest between Trump and the Democrats. Trump became irrelevant the day he drew his line in the sand, and said he was willing to keep the government shutdown for months or years. That is also when he lost. He had already made the strategic blunder of going on the record as to owning the shut-down completely.

After November's Blue Wave, every Republican Senator up in 2020 knows they are at risk. Even those not up until 2022 know that letting Trump tank the economy for his silly wall can end their career. The Democrats didn't start this game of economic chicken, but the only way they can lose is by blinking first.

35

If Trump could turn back time, he'd find a way, to build his dipshit wall and make Mexico pay.

But the real question is:
Do you believe in life after Trump?

36

It was disclosed yesterday in the NYT that the stable genius 3D chess player has been under FBI investigation as a long time Russian asset.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/politics/fbi-trump-russia-inquiry.html

He has been on the watchlist since 2987. In 1987, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuri Dubinin, arranged for Trump and his then-wife, Ivana, to enjoy an all-expense-paid trip to Moscow to consider possible business prospects. Only seven weeks after his trip, Trump ran full-page ads in the Boston Globe, the NYT and WaPO calling for, in effect, the dismantling of the postwar Western foreign policy alliance. This during the PEAK of the Cold War. How he could secure a GOP nomination after siding with the communist/Soviet global interests is staggering. Until you realize how many Republicans have since been on Russian payrolls.

The whole Trump/Russian connection started out as laundering money for the Russian mob through Trump's real estate, but evolved into something far bigger.

Trump is the highest placed Russian spy in history.

And his supporters are abetting treason.

37

“1987” Jesus. Can we get an edit window?

38

@28 commentingbimbo: Nah, you're just a pawn in the single most futile 3D chess game in world history (read @36). Get ready for Trumpty Dumpty's Great Fall---it's gonna be sweeeeeeeet! May the Fall of Trump be the death of the GOP.
@36 ProfessorHistory: I know, right? Trump. Pence, and all RepubliKKKans should all be in prison.
@37 ProfessorHistory: I feel your frustration. You should see & read my typos! Try drinking alcohol before posting (red wine works wonders for me)---I get amazingly fewer typos when comfortably numb.

39

@34 Greenwood Bob: I really would love to see the GOP enter mass extinction soon after all inept, shameless RepubliKKKan Senators, Representatives, ill-nominated U.S. Supreme Court Justices and billion dollar tax write-off chortling Congress members go after Trumpty Dumpty in an angry Tea Party-like mob. Let the pig roast begin!
@35 Lastlight: I nominate you for the 2019 Grammy Award for best song lyrics in this thread. Bravo!

40

@35 Lastlight: Maybe the question is, will there BE life, let alone Earth, after Trump?

41

Don’t negotiate with terrorists.

42

Trump himself will never give in, because he and his Fox News-addled base couldn't care less about the consequences of a shutdown. The real point man is Mitch McConnell, who knows this and is currently in hiding. The shutdown will end when enough Republican senators, feeling the heat from their own hurting constituents, prevail on McConnell to allow passage of a veto-proof clean spending bill. If Democrats hold firm for a few more weeks, it will happen. Just be patient, Cher.

43

@42 MarciaX: Well said and summarized. Mitch McDumbbell---solid GOP pork fat with what, twelve chins? Now there's a RepubliKKKan pig roast worth celebrating.

44

I'm standing in line at an airport. The shutdown isn't going to just much longer. People can only go without pay so long before the airports just shut down. That'll focus some minds.

45

@27 The US is a constitutional republic. The office the Executive branch and Congress are equal in terms of power over governance. The Executive can't rule by fiat. That's not how it works. The majority of voters did not vote for Trump. Trump won because he eeked out a slim margin, under 100k votes in three states to give him the win. Most of those votes were in one state. Hardly a mandate considering he lost the popular vote by about 3 million votes. His base is more or less a third of the country not a majority or even a plurality. His power comes from convincing gullible and naive people to vote against their best interest. At some point air traffic controllers, TSA agents and Customs and Border Protection officers will stop working. The Senate is where the bottleneck is. If they vote exactly how they did four weeks ago and Trump has the balls to veto the bill they can override it.

46

Holy Crap. Cher truly is a remarkable woman with unique and wonderful powers. She has been able to do what no one else ever has, namely to make me agree with Charles.

@23 - I agree with you that celebrities' opinions should not be taken seriously. Let's start with not taking those of the "celebrity" in the White House seriously.


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