Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
Way back in the summer of 2022, Germany had a 9€ monthly ticket that covered (almost) all local and regional trains, busses, metros, trams and ferries, in every part of the country. It was also a way to try and boost local tourism as the covid restrictions were winding down.
The 9€ version was there just for the summer months, but later they brought the ticket back as a regular thing, first at 49€, currently at 58€, and soon at 63€ per month. The price keeps climbing slowly, but it's still a really good deal. The faster IC and ICE trains that aren't covered by the monthly ticket still see a lot of use, and apparently a whole bunch of people still buy regional monthly tickets anyway.
The ticket's heavily subsidized by state and federal governments, but it's a great deal for the end user. You can hop on a train, visit a different city, and don't need to worry about how their ticket system works.
I don't think this would really work in the US the same way, but maybe there's regional options they could explore.
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"
food for an incredible amount of people is overrated and _hangry_ people the easiest to reason with. maybe read a history book, any era.
especially in light of better treatment - which would be to have people make enough for full time work to decently afford the bare necessities - this is stemming the bleeding. but even then, food security should not be out of the question for any person in a country that can easily afford it.
with social justice comes peace and more productive and happy people - and a country where you don't need to send the god damn military or militarize the police force because you have a - yearly - ridiculous surplus of military equipment.
and fabricate crisis after crisis while Rome is burning.
In Minnesota it is in the constitution that all gas tax money must go to roads and bridges, something I think we all agree should be a federal admendment. I would argue that gas tax revenue should go to Bus's and BRT. As more people traveling on bus's would lower the traffic the drivers experience, and lower the bill that the gax tax needs to pay by lowering the demand for roads and thus the cost to build and mantain them.
People working full time shouldn't be on SNAP. People working full time shouldn't have to be on SNAP. Walmart has discovered the algorithms for crime match up very close to the algorithms for people who can't afford food. It was judged that it was sci-fi dystopia that you could very reasonably "predict crime" by working various statistics togeather to get predictive analaysis down to better inform policeing.
The romans learned that the poors riot when no food so they gave them food and they stopped rioting.
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
The obvious difference being that SNAP has not historically been affected by shutdowns and the most vulnerable in society depend on it to eat?
You’re making some facile arguments (some of which Intro also made) which I’m pretty sure both of you are informed enough to understand why they’re wrong, so let’s see if we can do this quickly:
The whole premise of the budgetary process is that two parties have different priorities of what to fund, and if neither has big enough margins to pass it unilaterally, they have to come to an agreement. Some of those priorities are shared, some are valued more by one side than the other, and some are supported by one side and explicitly opposed by the other. You can imagine one side supporting A, B, C, and D, not caring about E, and hating F. Meanwhile the other side supports A, B, E, and F, doesn’t care about C, and hates D. So a compromise might look like “let’s fund ABCE” – while “let’s fund ABC” would really be a clear victory for one side and capitulation by the other.
The shutdown is designed into this process as a looming threat forcing both sides to the table to avoid ugly consequences. That’s intentional. It might seem stupid to intentionally drive toward a cliff make the parties agree about how to steer away from it – I’ve always thought so – but that’s the way it’s designed. Then the idea is that whichever party is being more intransigent in negotiations should take the blame for whatever destruction is caused by the shutdown.
But how do you decide which party is being intransigent? If I’m at a market negotiating to buy something, and the seller is asking for $400 while I’m offering $20, one of us is probably being unreasonable but how do you know which without some idea of what the “true” price is? In previous shutdowns Republicans demanded Democrats fund or defund things in direct opposition to their policy goals, but if those demands are in line with public opinion, isn’t that how democracy *should* work? You have to define a baseline “reasonable” budget to decide whose demands are deviating too much from that baseline.
Here it’s historically been Democrats putting a lot of rhetorical weight on the “clean CR.” The premise is this: what if we just keep funding everything at current levels? You can’t accuse us of intransigence when we’re not even making any demands beyond the status quo. If our opponents shut down the government instead of agreeing to that, it must be them who’s to blame, right?
Now Republicans have never bought that argument in the past, and I doubt you or Intro have either, but it’s worth noting that the rhetorical weight of it depends on the fact that nothing is supposed to change on that path. If Democrats had used some questionable legal maneuvering to ensure that 51% of our military budget was funneled directly to Hamas, and the “clean CR” would maintain and ratify that arrangement, Republicans would rightly argue that there’s nothing reasonable or bipartisan about the status quo, and insisting their opponents vote to continue it is, in fact, intransigence. So, I mean, I find the timing of coming around to the “clean CR” argument suspicious – you’ve never bought that before, why now? – but I also think it just doesn’t apply the same way right now.
As a side note, the “Republicans voted to fund the government, and Democrats blocked it!” argument is asinine and I think you understand that. Rs have their proposal, Ds have another proposal, they both support their own proposal and oppose the other. Rs currently have the power to decide what proposals get a vote, so they just kept holding votes on their proposal. That has no bearing on whether they’re the ones making unreasonable/intransigent demands or not, and emphasizing the number of votes (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the argument I was hoping to save us both the time of having, so I lost that battle I guess.
it's just the logical conclusion of winning at all costs. you take the win and the power, but abdicate the responsibility and duty that comes with it.
Trump does just that.
President Donald Trump said “a lot of good” could stem from a government shutdown, threatening to oust federal workers and eliminate programs that are favored by Democrats if Congress doesn’t meet a midnight funding deadline.
“We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want and they’d be Democrat things,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday. “They just don’t learn. So we have no choice. I have to do that for the country.”
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
The obvious difference being that SNAP has not historically been affected by shutdowns and the most vulnerable in society depend on it to eat?
You’re making some facile arguments (some of which Intro also made) which I’m pretty sure both of you are informed enough to understand why they’re wrong, so let’s see if we can do this quickly:
The whole premise of the budgetary process is that two parties have different priorities of what to fund, and if neither has big enough margins to pass it unilaterally, they have to come to an agreement. Some of those priorities are shared, some are valued more by one side than the other, and some are supported by one side and explicitly opposed by the other. You can imagine one side supporting A, B, C, and D, not caring about E, and hating F. Meanwhile the other side supports A, B, E, and F, doesn’t care about C, and hates D. So a compromise might look like “let’s fund ABCE” – while “let’s fund ABC” would really be a clear victory for one side and capitulation by the other.
The shutdown is designed into this process as a looming threat forcing both sides to the table to avoid ugly consequences. That’s intentional. It might seem stupid to intentionally drive toward a cliff make the parties agree about how to steer away from it – I’ve always thought so – but that’s the way it’s designed. Then the idea is that whichever party is being more intransigent in negotiations should take the blame for whatever destruction is caused by the shutdown.
But how do you decide which party is being intransigent? If I’m at a market negotiating to buy something, and the seller is asking for $400 while I’m offering $20, one of us is probably being unreasonable but how do you know which without some idea of what the “true” price is? In previous shutdowns Republicans demanded Democrats fund or defund things in direct opposition to their policy goals, but if those demands are in line with public opinion, isn’t that how democracy *should* work? You have to define a baseline “reasonable” budget to decide whose demands are deviating too much from that baseline.
Here it’s historically been Democrats putting a lot of rhetorical weight on the “clean CR.” The premise is this: what if we just keep funding everything at current levels? You can’t accuse us of intransigence when we’re not even making any demands beyond the status quo. If our opponents shut down the government instead of agreeing to that, it must be them who’s to blame, right?
Now Republicans have never bought that argument in the past, and I doubt you or Intro have either, but it’s worth noting that the rhetorical weight of it depends on the fact that nothing is supposed to change on that path. If Democrats had used some questionable legal maneuvering to ensure that 51% of our military budget was funneled directly to Hamas, and the “clean CR” would maintain and ratify that arrangement, Republicans would rightly argue that there’s nothing reasonable or bipartisan about the status quo, and insisting their opponents vote to continue it is, in fact, intransigence. So, I mean, I find the timing of coming around to the “clean CR” argument suspicious – you’ve never bought that before, why now? – but I also think it just doesn’t apply the same way right now.
As a side note, the “Republicans voted to fund the government, and Democrats blocked it!” argument is asinine and I think you understand that. Rs have their proposal, Ds have another proposal, they both support their own proposal and oppose the other. Rs currently have the power to decide what proposals get a vote, so they just kept holding votes on their proposal. That has no bearing on whether they’re the ones making unreasonable/intransigent demands or not, and emphasizing the number of votes (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the argument I was hoping to save us both the time of having, so I lost that battle I guess.
I was also going to ignore this but I'll be quick. The healthcare subsidies were, and always have been, a separate thing from what is in the funding bills. Dems did it separately, it is spending *on top of* what is regular. It expires on a date dems set. That expiration date is, it will noted, NOT the same time as government funding generally. This fact you seem to have missed is a hard thing to explain for both your "it's not a clean CR if it doesn't fund our expanded subsidies" AND your "Republicans are being the intransigent ones" point. Voting for the CR now has absolutely no effect on the thing Dems are holding out for. As multiple dems have now noted, this shutdown is "leverage" for getting what they want. Normally you pass short term funding bills while negotiating, that used to be ideal. They can't even get that far.
Second, the only reason government is not open is because of senate democrats. SNAP would be funded, and the subsidies have not expired. I get the unwillingness to bite the bullet and admit you think what's happening is worth it for the subsidies but the exercises you are going through to make this Republicans fault is unbecoming. I would love to go aback to 2013 and see if dems here would now think that senate democrats should have negotiated over Obamacare with the likes of Ted Cruz. Just own it
The difference is that the CR needs democrat votes, if the republicans want them to override the fillbuster. Dems have made clear what the cost of them going along with republicans in this. The dems, being a minority party, are useing what little leverage they have to get what they want. They've learned that Trump and republicans aren't acting in good faith from their actions earlier in the term so they are putting their foot down and demanding in law what they are asking for. Republicans can, if they don't want those dem votes, just open the government whenever they want, as they have overruled the filbuster already this term. Senate democrats are not stopping republicans from doing anything other than being complicit with the trump agenda.
Even if republicans cave there is no assurance that trump will actually allow the subsidy to go out, so trump has nothing to lose from just agreeing.
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
The obvious difference being that SNAP has not historically been affected by shutdowns and the most vulnerable in society depend on it to eat?
You’re making some facile arguments (some of which Intro also made) which I’m pretty sure both of you are informed enough to understand why they’re wrong, so let’s see if we can do this quickly:
The whole premise of the budgetary process is that two parties have different priorities of what to fund, and if neither has big enough margins to pass it unilaterally, they have to come to an agreement. Some of those priorities are shared, some are valued more by one side than the other, and some are supported by one side and explicitly opposed by the other. You can imagine one side supporting A, B, C, and D, not caring about E, and hating F. Meanwhile the other side supports A, B, E, and F, doesn’t care about C, and hates D. So a compromise might look like “let’s fund ABCE” – while “let’s fund ABC” would really be a clear victory for one side and capitulation by the other.
The shutdown is designed into this process as a looming threat forcing both sides to the table to avoid ugly consequences. That’s intentional. It might seem stupid to intentionally drive toward a cliff make the parties agree about how to steer away from it – I’ve always thought so – but that’s the way it’s designed. Then the idea is that whichever party is being more intransigent in negotiations should take the blame for whatever destruction is caused by the shutdown.
But how do you decide which party is being intransigent? If I’m at a market negotiating to buy something, and the seller is asking for $400 while I’m offering $20, one of us is probably being unreasonable but how do you know which without some idea of what the “true” price is? In previous shutdowns Republicans demanded Democrats fund or defund things in direct opposition to their policy goals, but if those demands are in line with public opinion, isn’t that how democracy *should* work? You have to define a baseline “reasonable” budget to decide whose demands are deviating too much from that baseline.
Here it’s historically been Democrats putting a lot of rhetorical weight on the “clean CR.” The premise is this: what if we just keep funding everything at current levels? You can’t accuse us of intransigence when we’re not even making any demands beyond the status quo. If our opponents shut down the government instead of agreeing to that, it must be them who’s to blame, right?
Now Republicans have never bought that argument in the past, and I doubt you or Intro have either, but it’s worth noting that the rhetorical weight of it depends on the fact that nothing is supposed to change on that path. If Democrats had used some questionable legal maneuvering to ensure that 51% of our military budget was funneled directly to Hamas, and the “clean CR” would maintain and ratify that arrangement, Republicans would rightly argue that there’s nothing reasonable or bipartisan about the status quo, and insisting their opponents vote to continue it is, in fact, intransigence. So, I mean, I find the timing of coming around to the “clean CR” argument suspicious – you’ve never bought that before, why now? – but I also think it just doesn’t apply the same way right now.
As a side note, the “Republicans voted to fund the government, and Democrats blocked it!” argument is asinine and I think you understand that. Rs have their proposal, Ds have another proposal, they both support their own proposal and oppose the other. Rs currently have the power to decide what proposals get a vote, so they just kept holding votes on their proposal. That has no bearing on whether they’re the ones making unreasonable/intransigent demands or not, and emphasizing the number of votes (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the argument I was hoping to save us both the time of having, so I lost that battle I guess.
I was also going to ignore this but I'll be quick. The healthcare subsidies were, and always have been, a separate thing from what is in the funding bills. Dems did it separately, it is spending *on top of* what is regular. It expires on a date dems set. That expiration date is, it will noted, NOT the same time as government funding generally. This fact you seem to have missed is a hard thing to explain for both your "it's not a clean CR if it doesn't fund our expanded subsidies" AND your "Republicans are being the intransigent ones" point. Voting for the CR now has absolutely no effect on the thing Dems are holding out for. As multiple dems have now noted, this shutdown is "leverage" for getting what they want. Normally you pass short term funding bills while negotiating, that used to be ideal. They can't even get that far.
Second, the only reason government is not open is because of senate democrats. SNAP would be funded, and the subsidies have not expired. I get the unwillingness to bite the bullet and admit you think what's happening is worth it for the subsidies but the exercises you are going through to make this Republicans fault is unbecoming. I would love to go aback to 2013 and see if dems here would now think that senate democrats should have negotiated over Obamacare with the likes of Ted Cruz. Just own it
I didn’t miss it, I just think you’re letting the procedural details obscure the bigger picture. Procedurally, it’s true, the healthcare subsidies are “separate.” But the Republican position is that we should fund the government and let those subsidies expire; the Democrat position is that we should fund the government and extend the subsidies.
This is why I went into *why* the “clean CR” would have rhetorical weight. It’s not that the syllables “clean CR” are a magic incantation which automatically makes your negotiating position the reasonable one; it’s that the “clean CR” is committing to a position which does not change the status quo. Under the Republican plan, a lot of people’s healthcare premiums go way up ($1500/month going to $4000/month are numbers I’ve seen, anecdotally). Under the Democrat plan, they don’t. The Democrats think their position is the reasonable one, and intransigent Republicans are so insistent on ending the subsidies that they’ll shut down the government to ensure it. I might argue the Democrats *should* be shutting down the government to advance a non-status quo position (rescinding all that ICE funding, for instance) but that wouldn’t matter because everyone knows they won’t.
Incidentally, if I went back to 2013 (or any of the other shutdowns where Dems were offering a “clean CR”) would I find an Introvert agreeing “Republicans are shutting down the government with their intransigence”? I have a guess, but we could dig into politics threads from back then if we wanted to check.
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
The obvious difference being that SNAP has not historically been affected by shutdowns and the most vulnerable in society depend on it to eat?
You’re making some facile arguments (some of which Intro also made) which I’m pretty sure both of you are informed enough to understand why they’re wrong, so let’s see if we can do this quickly:
The whole premise of the budgetary process is that two parties have different priorities of what to fund, and if neither has big enough margins to pass it unilaterally, they have to come to an agreement. Some of those priorities are shared, some are valued more by one side than the other, and some are supported by one side and explicitly opposed by the other. You can imagine one side supporting A, B, C, and D, not caring about E, and hating F. Meanwhile the other side supports A, B, E, and F, doesn’t care about C, and hates D. So a compromise might look like “let’s fund ABCE” – while “let’s fund ABC” would really be a clear victory for one side and capitulation by the other.
The shutdown is designed into this process as a looming threat forcing both sides to the table to avoid ugly consequences. That’s intentional. It might seem stupid to intentionally drive toward a cliff make the parties agree about how to steer away from it – I’ve always thought so – but that’s the way it’s designed. Then the idea is that whichever party is being more intransigent in negotiations should take the blame for whatever destruction is caused by the shutdown.
But how do you decide which party is being intransigent? If I’m at a market negotiating to buy something, and the seller is asking for $400 while I’m offering $20, one of us is probably being unreasonable but how do you know which without some idea of what the “true” price is? In previous shutdowns Republicans demanded Democrats fund or defund things in direct opposition to their policy goals, but if those demands are in line with public opinion, isn’t that how democracy *should* work? You have to define a baseline “reasonable” budget to decide whose demands are deviating too much from that baseline.
Here it’s historically been Democrats putting a lot of rhetorical weight on the “clean CR.” The premise is this: what if we just keep funding everything at current levels? You can’t accuse us of intransigence when we’re not even making any demands beyond the status quo. If our opponents shut down the government instead of agreeing to that, it must be them who’s to blame, right?
Now Republicans have never bought that argument in the past, and I doubt you or Intro have either, but it’s worth noting that the rhetorical weight of it depends on the fact that nothing is supposed to change on that path. If Democrats had used some questionable legal maneuvering to ensure that 51% of our military budget was funneled directly to Hamas, and the “clean CR” would maintain and ratify that arrangement, Republicans would rightly argue that there’s nothing reasonable or bipartisan about the status quo, and insisting their opponents vote to continue it is, in fact, intransigence. So, I mean, I find the timing of coming around to the “clean CR” argument suspicious – you’ve never bought that before, why now? – but I also think it just doesn’t apply the same way right now.
As a side note, the “Republicans voted to fund the government, and Democrats blocked it!” argument is asinine and I think you understand that. Rs have their proposal, Ds have another proposal, they both support their own proposal and oppose the other. Rs currently have the power to decide what proposals get a vote, so they just kept holding votes on their proposal. That has no bearing on whether they’re the ones making unreasonable/intransigent demands or not, and emphasizing the number of votes (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the argument I was hoping to save us both the time of having, so I lost that battle I guess.
I was also going to ignore this but I'll be quick. The healthcare subsidies were, and always have been, a separate thing from what is in the funding bills. Dems did it separately, it is spending *on top of* what is regular. It expires on a date dems set. That expiration date is, it will noted, NOT the same time as government funding generally. This fact you seem to have missed is a hard thing to explain for both your "it's not a clean CR if it doesn't fund our expanded subsidies" AND your "Republicans are being the intransigent ones" point. Voting for the CR now has absolutely no effect on the thing Dems are holding out for. As multiple dems have now noted, this shutdown is "leverage" for getting what they want. Normally you pass short term funding bills while negotiating, that used to be ideal. They can't even get that far.
Second, the only reason government is not open is because of senate democrats. SNAP would be funded, and the subsidies have not expired. I get the unwillingness to bite the bullet and admit you think what's happening is worth it for the subsidies but the exercises you are going through to make this Republicans fault is unbecoming. I would love to go aback to 2013 and see if dems here would now think that senate democrats should have negotiated over Obamacare with the likes of Ted Cruz. Just own it
I didn’t miss it, I just think you’re letting the procedural details obscure the bigger picture. Procedurally, it’s true, the healthcare subsidies are “separate.” But the Republican position is that we should fund the government and let those subsidies expire; the Democrat position is that we should fund the government and extend the subsidies.
This is why I went into *why* the “clean CR” would have rhetorical weight. It’s not that the syllables “clean CR” are a magic incantation which automatically makes your negotiating position the reasonable one; it’s that the “clean CR” is committing to a position which does not change the status quo. Under the Republican plan, a lot of people’s healthcare premiums go way up ($1500/month going to $4000/month are numbers I’ve seen, anecdotally). Under the Democrat plan, they don’t. The Democrats think their position is the reasonable one, and intransigent Republicans are so insistent on ending the subsidies that they’ll shut down the government to ensure it. I might argue the Democrats *should* be shutting down the government to advance a non-status quo position (rescinding all that ICE funding, for instance) but that wouldn’t matter because everyone knows they won’t.
Incidentally, if I went back to 2013 (or any of the other shutdowns where Dems were offering a “clean CR”) would I find an Introvert agreeing “Republicans are shutting down the government with their intransigence”? I have a guess, but we could dig into politics threads from back then if we wanted to check.
The CR dems are rejecting expires before the subsidies. That's part of my point. And you are trying to redefine what these government funding bills even are. You are linking two things that are simply were not linked until dems decided to link them. Listen, were one to go through my post history you won't find much opposition to shutdown politics. But dems are being dishonest by trying to claim they are the ones fighting while also blaming their opposition for the consequences of the fight.
As a side note, the “Republicans voted to fund the government, and Democrats blocked it!” argument is asinine and I think you understand that. Rs have their proposal, Ds have another proposal, they both support their own proposal and oppose the other. Rs currently have the power to decide what proposals get a vote, so they just kept holding votes on their proposal. That has no bearing on whether they’re the ones making unreasonable/intransigent demands or not, and emphasizing the number of votes (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the argument I was hoping to save us both the time of having, so I lost that battle I guess.
What you got wrong here is that republicans dont have "proposal" democrats do. And from what I know they dont offer anything in exchange. Voting for CR doesnt count, because they passed one in March, and now want some bonus for doing the same.
On November 05 2025 23:03 Doublemint wrote: it's just the logical conclusion of winning at all costs. you take the win and the power, but abdicate the responsibility and duty that comes with it.
President Donald Trump said “a lot of good” could stem from a government shutdown, threatening to oust federal workers and eliminate programs that are favored by Democrats if Congress doesn’t meet a midnight funding deadline.
“We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want and they’d be Democrat things,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday. “They just don’t learn. So we have no choice. I have to do that for the country.”
hold the course Donny. voters love how great that gilded age of yours turns out to be. calling vital programs his own voters rely on Democrat things.
fucking psycho.
This is why US politics is better than any sitcom ever now.
Democrats spend half a year fighting Trump on firing federal workers, come second half of the year they promptly forcing him to do just that.
SNAP thing is even better. In what world federal judge can order government what to spend money on? Thats still nothing though, because effectively what it does it forces Trump to bypass congress in regards to government spending. I am not sure if thats the precedent one wants to create with Trump as president (or any other president for that matter).
Literally all I want now is for Trump to use emergency funds for decorating front wall of the WH with massive relief of himself, Mt Rushmore style.
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
The obvious difference being that SNAP has not historically been affected by shutdowns and the most vulnerable in society depend on it to eat?
You’re making some facile arguments (some of which Intro also made) which I’m pretty sure both of you are informed enough to understand why they’re wrong, so let’s see if we can do this quickly:
The whole premise of the budgetary process is that two parties have different priorities of what to fund, and if neither has big enough margins to pass it unilaterally, they have to come to an agreement. Some of those priorities are shared, some are valued more by one side than the other, and some are supported by one side and explicitly opposed by the other. You can imagine one side supporting A, B, C, and D, not caring about E, and hating F. Meanwhile the other side supports A, B, E, and F, doesn’t care about C, and hates D. So a compromise might look like “let’s fund ABCE” – while “let’s fund ABC” would really be a clear victory for one side and capitulation by the other.
The shutdown is designed into this process as a looming threat forcing both sides to the table to avoid ugly consequences. That’s intentional. It might seem stupid to intentionally drive toward a cliff make the parties agree about how to steer away from it – I’ve always thought so – but that’s the way it’s designed. Then the idea is that whichever party is being more intransigent in negotiations should take the blame for whatever destruction is caused by the shutdown.
But how do you decide which party is being intransigent? If I’m at a market negotiating to buy something, and the seller is asking for $400 while I’m offering $20, one of us is probably being unreasonable but how do you know which without some idea of what the “true” price is? In previous shutdowns Republicans demanded Democrats fund or defund things in direct opposition to their policy goals, but if those demands are in line with public opinion, isn’t that how democracy *should* work? You have to define a baseline “reasonable” budget to decide whose demands are deviating too much from that baseline.
Here it’s historically been Democrats putting a lot of rhetorical weight on the “clean CR.” The premise is this: what if we just keep funding everything at current levels? You can’t accuse us of intransigence when we’re not even making any demands beyond the status quo. If our opponents shut down the government instead of agreeing to that, it must be them who’s to blame, right?
Now Republicans have never bought that argument in the past, and I doubt you or Intro have either, but it’s worth noting that the rhetorical weight of it depends on the fact that nothing is supposed to change on that path. If Democrats had used some questionable legal maneuvering to ensure that 51% of our military budget was funneled directly to Hamas, and the “clean CR” would maintain and ratify that arrangement, Republicans would rightly argue that there’s nothing reasonable or bipartisan about the status quo, and insisting their opponents vote to continue it is, in fact, intransigence. So, I mean, I find the timing of coming around to the “clean CR” argument suspicious – you’ve never bought that before, why now? – but I also think it just doesn’t apply the same way right now.
As a side note, the “Republicans voted to fund the government, and Democrats blocked it!” argument is asinine and I think you understand that. Rs have their proposal, Ds have another proposal, they both support their own proposal and oppose the other. Rs currently have the power to decide what proposals get a vote, so they just kept holding votes on their proposal. That has no bearing on whether they’re the ones making unreasonable/intransigent demands or not, and emphasizing the number of votes (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the argument I was hoping to save us both the time of having, so I lost that battle I guess.
I was also going to ignore this but I'll be quick. The healthcare subsidies were, and always have been, a separate thing from what is in the funding bills. Dems did it separately, it is spending *on top of* what is regular. It expires on a date dems set. That expiration date is, it will noted, NOT the same time as government funding generally. This fact you seem to have missed is a hard thing to explain for both your "it's not a clean CR if it doesn't fund our expanded subsidies" AND your "Republicans are being the intransigent ones" point. Voting for the CR now has absolutely no effect on the thing Dems are holding out for. As multiple dems have now noted, this shutdown is "leverage" for getting what they want. Normally you pass short term funding bills while negotiating, that used to be ideal. They can't even get that far.
Second, the only reason government is not open is because of senate democrats. SNAP would be funded, and the subsidies have not expired. I get the unwillingness to bite the bullet and admit you think what's happening is worth it for the subsidies but the exercises you are going through to make this Republicans fault is unbecoming. I would love to go aback to 2013 and see if dems here would now think that senate democrats should have negotiated over Obamacare with the likes of Ted Cruz. Just own it
I didn’t miss it, I just think you’re letting the procedural details obscure the bigger picture. Procedurally, it’s true, the healthcare subsidies are “separate.” But the Republican position is that we should fund the government and let those subsidies expire; the Democrat position is that we should fund the government and extend the subsidies.
This is why I went into *why* the “clean CR” would have rhetorical weight. It’s not that the syllables “clean CR” are a magic incantation which automatically makes your negotiating position the reasonable one; it’s that the “clean CR” is committing to a position which does not change the status quo. Under the Republican plan, a lot of people’s healthcare premiums go way up ($1500/month going to $4000/month are numbers I’ve seen, anecdotally). Under the Democrat plan, they don’t. The Democrats think their position is the reasonable one, and intransigent Republicans are so insistent on ending the subsidies that they’ll shut down the government to ensure it. I might argue the Democrats *should* be shutting down the government to advance a non-status quo position (rescinding all that ICE funding, for instance) but that wouldn’t matter because everyone knows they won’t.
Incidentally, if I went back to 2013 (or any of the other shutdowns where Dems were offering a “clean CR”) would I find an Introvert agreeing “Republicans are shutting down the government with their intransigence”? I have a guess, but we could dig into politics threads from back then if we wanted to check.
The CR dems are rejecting expires before the subsidies. That's part of my point. And you are trying to redefine what these government funding bills even are. You are linking two things that are simply were not linked until dems decided to link them. Listen, were one to go through my post history you won't find much opposition to shutdown politics. But dems are being dishonest by trying to claim they are the ones fighting while also blaming their opposition for the consequences of the fight.
So your issue is that Dems aren’t willing to do a short-term CR and shut down the government a month from now? What would be the point? If Republicans are willing to extend the subsidies they might as well just do it now. If they’re not, and public opinion is against them on it, Dems should hammer them on it until they concede. Isn’t that how this is supposed to work?
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
The obvious difference being that SNAP has not historically been affected by shutdowns and the most vulnerable in society depend on it to eat?
You’re making some facile arguments (some of which Intro also made) which I’m pretty sure both of you are informed enough to understand why they’re wrong, so let’s see if we can do this quickly:
The whole premise of the budgetary process is that two parties have different priorities of what to fund, and if neither has big enough margins to pass it unilaterally, they have to come to an agreement. Some of those priorities are shared, some are valued more by one side than the other, and some are supported by one side and explicitly opposed by the other. You can imagine one side supporting A, B, C, and D, not caring about E, and hating F. Meanwhile the other side supports A, B, E, and F, doesn’t care about C, and hates D. So a compromise might look like “let’s fund ABCE” – while “let’s fund ABC” would really be a clear victory for one side and capitulation by the other.
Sounds like agreeing "Let's fund A" would also be a victory for one side and capitulation by the other in this frame. Now I find the suggestion Democrats want to honorably fund SNAP separately to be suspect.
For Obamacare subsidies, it's is a policy question and a policy issue. It's not a budget issue. Because the policy is how much money you spend. That's the only step.
In a budget negotiation, you go something like this - the government has a space program. We think right now $40 billion is good because it will stimulate new technologies and we need an edge over China and it drums up jobs for my constituents. Other side says $20 billion because Navy needs a new carrier group this year instead.
For subsidies, you're not making a program and then debating how much to spend on it. It costs how much it costs based on the policy you set. For Obamacare subsidies, it's is a policy question and a policy issue. It's not a budget issue. Because the policy is how much money you spend. That's the only step. You can debate how much you think it will cost and how much you think you'll need, but all that affects is when you will end up running out of money and need to find more money for it again.
For example, if Congress passed a program to pay half of everybody's rent, it would cost half of everybody's rent. That's the cost. That's what you have to budget. The parties couldn't show up at budget time and say "We party A want to spend $10 billion on the pay half of everybody's rent program" and then rebut "We party B only want to spend $5 billion and think party A isn't negotiating in good faith." If that were the case then from the beginning it would be the "Pay half of only some certain people's rent, to be decided by lottery after funding ironed out later."
For intransigence the reason Democrats have dragged this into sabotaging the federal budget is they won't make a policy deal, and may now even actually believe that the delinquency they're engaged in is normal. Either because there is nothing Republicans want, or because Democrats simply find it unacceptable for Republicans to get a single thing they want, on principle, even if it meant also getting the subsidies for health insurance companies they value so much.
On November 05 2025 22:47 ChristianS wrote: (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
What I said was they blocked the CR 12+ times. Not that they voted to shut down the government. They blocked it by stopping it from going to a final vote. I don't see how that's anything other than what factually happened. It is the heart of why the CR didn't pass the Senate. Because the Senate has cloture votes and the House doesn't. You can certainly reword what I say and criticize its rhetorical motives to your heart's desire.
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
The obvious difference being that SNAP has not historically been affected by shutdowns and the most vulnerable in society depend on it to eat?
You’re making some facile arguments (some of which Intro also made) which I’m pretty sure both of you are informed enough to understand why they’re wrong, so let’s see if we can do this quickly:
The whole premise of the budgetary process is that two parties have different priorities of what to fund, and if neither has big enough margins to pass it unilaterally, they have to come to an agreement. Some of those priorities are shared, some are valued more by one side than the other, and some are supported by one side and explicitly opposed by the other. You can imagine one side supporting A, B, C, and D, not caring about E, and hating F. Meanwhile the other side supports A, B, E, and F, doesn’t care about C, and hates D. So a compromise might look like “let’s fund ABCE” – while “let’s fund ABC” would really be a clear victory for one side and capitulation by the other.
The shutdown is designed into this process as a looming threat forcing both sides to the table to avoid ugly consequences. That’s intentional. It might seem stupid to intentionally drive toward a cliff make the parties agree about how to steer away from it – I’ve always thought so – but that’s the way it’s designed. Then the idea is that whichever party is being more intransigent in negotiations should take the blame for whatever destruction is caused by the shutdown.
But how do you decide which party is being intransigent? If I’m at a market negotiating to buy something, and the seller is asking for $400 while I’m offering $20, one of us is probably being unreasonable but how do you know which without some idea of what the “true” price is? In previous shutdowns Republicans demanded Democrats fund or defund things in direct opposition to their policy goals, but if those demands are in line with public opinion, isn’t that how democracy *should* work? You have to define a baseline “reasonable” budget to decide whose demands are deviating too much from that baseline.
Here it’s historically been Democrats putting a lot of rhetorical weight on the “clean CR.” The premise is this: what if we just keep funding everything at current levels? You can’t accuse us of intransigence when we’re not even making any demands beyond the status quo. If our opponents shut down the government instead of agreeing to that, it must be them who’s to blame, right?
Now Republicans have never bought that argument in the past, and I doubt you or Intro have either, but it’s worth noting that the rhetorical weight of it depends on the fact that nothing is supposed to change on that path. If Democrats had used some questionable legal maneuvering to ensure that 51% of our military budget was funneled directly to Hamas, and the “clean CR” would maintain and ratify that arrangement, Republicans would rightly argue that there’s nothing reasonable or bipartisan about the status quo, and insisting their opponents vote to continue it is, in fact, intransigence. So, I mean, I find the timing of coming around to the “clean CR” argument suspicious – you’ve never bought that before, why now? – but I also think it just doesn’t apply the same way right now.
As a side note, the “Republicans voted to fund the government, and Democrats blocked it!” argument is asinine and I think you understand that. Rs have their proposal, Ds have another proposal, they both support their own proposal and oppose the other. Rs currently have the power to decide what proposals get a vote, so they just kept holding votes on their proposal. That has no bearing on whether they’re the ones making unreasonable/intransigent demands or not, and emphasizing the number of votes (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the argument I was hoping to save us both the time of having, so I lost that battle I guess.
I was also going to ignore this but I'll be quick. The healthcare subsidies were, and always have been, a separate thing from what is in the funding bills. Dems did it separately, it is spending *on top of* what is regular. It expires on a date dems set. That expiration date is, it will noted, NOT the same time as government funding generally. This fact you seem to have missed is a hard thing to explain for both your "it's not a clean CR if it doesn't fund our expanded subsidies" AND your "Republicans are being the intransigent ones" point. Voting for the CR now has absolutely no effect on the thing Dems are holding out for. As multiple dems have now noted, this shutdown is "leverage" for getting what they want. Normally you pass short term funding bills while negotiating, that used to be ideal. They can't even get that far.
Second, the only reason government is not open is because of senate democrats. SNAP would be funded, and the subsidies have not expired. I get the unwillingness to bite the bullet and admit you think what's happening is worth it for the subsidies but the exercises you are going through to make this Republicans fault is unbecoming. I would love to go aback to 2013 and see if dems here would now think that senate democrats should have negotiated over Obamacare with the likes of Ted Cruz. Just own it
I didn’t miss it, I just think you’re letting the procedural details obscure the bigger picture. Procedurally, it’s true, the healthcare subsidies are “separate.” But the Republican position is that we should fund the government and let those subsidies expire; the Democrat position is that we should fund the government and extend the subsidies.
This is why I went into *why* the “clean CR” would have rhetorical weight. It’s not that the syllables “clean CR” are a magic incantation which automatically makes your negotiating position the reasonable one; it’s that the “clean CR” is committing to a position which does not change the status quo. Under the Republican plan, a lot of people’s healthcare premiums go way up ($1500/month going to $4000/month are numbers I’ve seen, anecdotally). Under the Democrat plan, they don’t. The Democrats think their position is the reasonable one, and intransigent Republicans are so insistent on ending the subsidies that they’ll shut down the government to ensure it. I might argue the Democrats *should* be shutting down the government to advance a non-status quo position (rescinding all that ICE funding, for instance) but that wouldn’t matter because everyone knows they won’t.
Incidentally, if I went back to 2013 (or any of the other shutdowns where Dems were offering a “clean CR”) would I find an Introvert agreeing “Republicans are shutting down the government with their intransigence”? I have a guess, but we could dig into politics threads from back then if we wanted to check.
The CR dems are rejecting expires before the subsidies. That's part of my point. And you are trying to redefine what these government funding bills even are. You are linking two things that are simply were not linked until dems decided to link them. Listen, were one to go through my post history you won't find much opposition to shutdown politics. But dems are being dishonest by trying to claim they are the ones fighting while also blaming their opposition for the consequences of the fight.
So your issue is that Dems aren’t willing to do a short-term CR and shut down the government a month from now? What would be the point? If Republicans are willing to extend the subsidies they might as well just do it now. If they’re not, and public opinion is against them on it, Dems should hammer them on it until they concede. Isn’t that how this is supposed to work?
Presumably by the logic that "shutdowns hurt people" doing it later is obviously better? Especially since the political pressure will be higher as expiration time comes and goes? They have, by their own previously stated logic, caused pain and suffering but are trying to avoid saying so.
I think just shoveling more money into it is a bad idea, but what I want is some honesty. Hard to expect from politicians, but I have (had) at least some hope that many dems here would be more...forthright. "Yes we are shutting it down, and this is why!"
For those who actually support what they are doing i say: go nuts! Have at it.
On November 04 2025 22:28 Billyboy wrote: @introvert
“We have no inflation,” President Donald Trump said in his “60 Minutes” interview Sunday evening. “Our groceries are down.”
You OK with him just blatantly lying? And do you think Republicans will not notice that prices are up because Trump said so?
What a crazy world.
The strategy seems to be to go full-on 1984 doublethink.
It is insane to watch from the outside.
On November 04 2025 23:05 Introvert wrote:
On November 04 2025 22:28 Billyboy wrote: @introvert
“We have no inflation,” President Donald Trump said in his “60 Minutes” interview Sunday evening. “Our groceries are down.”
You OK with him just blatantly lying? And do you think Republicans will not notice that prices are up because Trump said so?
What a crazy world.
Huh? Why are you asking me about this? No, I don't like lying but people are inured to Trump's... mis-statements. Besides, dems are too busy shutting down the government and arguing about their various issues of concern to talk much about prices. It's no wonder their image is still in the toilet. We'll have to see if they improve on 2024 margins in elections tonight, if they don't... that's yikes. Maybe then they will learn something. But winning will probably hide their problems. Might even elect as AG the guy who wished his opponent's children were shot and killed, so everyone is off their rocker atm
On November 04 2025 23:44 Introvert wrote: Breaking news: conservative thinks Democrats a worse party than Republicans. More at 11. What people want is endless "Republican bad" to the point where they tie themselves into logical knots repeatedly. Thr shutdown is just the latest example. The only "acceptable" answer is that it's the GOP's fault even though it only happened because of senate Democrats. There is nothing I could even say at this point that would be accepted.
The hope is that at some point the not stupid Republicans will go "Holy shit it is an embarrassment and absolutely terrible for our country that we have a compulsive lying, dumb, narcissistic, nepo baby who openly takes bribes leading out party, this is bad thing."
Hell you do not even need to vote Dem, you could just join the Republicans and against Trump and try to pry your party out of the stupidest era. I can not understand how you Americans treat politics like team sports and support your parties guy no matter how clearly incompetent he is. It is also incredibly stupid that what is "winning" to people seems to be beating the other party and not making the country better.
Your country is on the fast track to becoming a shit hole and you are there cheering for it because you get to beat the dems. It is so painful to watch.
Hard as it may be for you to believe, I do on the whole think Republican policy positions are better for the country than Democrat ones. You have no idea what I say to people on "my side" since there aren't any of them here. It is interesting how you and many other posters continue to think this is just about making sure "my team" wins, as if I couldn't have good reasons for preferring it. You'd hope that people who spend hours upon hours lecturing GH on being a team player might grasp this but I guess it's too complicated.
On November 04 2025 23:44 Introvert wrote: Breaking news: conservative thinks Democrats a worse party than Republicans. More at 11. What people want is endless "Republican bad" to the point where they tie themselves into logical knots repeatedly. Thr shutdown is just the latest example. The only "acceptable" answer is that it's the GOP's fault even though it only happened because of senate Democrats. There is nothing I could even say at this point that would be accepted.
I mean, trying might help?
In a more generalised sense. Many people want their ‘team’ to win, of course. If one is losing though, so long as the game is played in the right spirit, as it were that goes a distance.
Outside these particular walls, sure it might be different. Within them, I would wager that getting Republicans to go ‘GOP’ bad isn’t a particular aspiration.
It would be conservatives having their own red lines, and acting accordingly. Something like that anyway, some self-regulation.
I mean I must have made similar posts on this theme at least 10 times prior. So expanding much is a bit redundant.
You can collectively do that, and have a slightly more civil wider discourse, or not.
Wider conservatism can’t have civil discourse with those who disagree with that creed if it reflexively defends everything the God King does, even the stuff that contravenes their ostensible principles.
The natural conclusion becomes that conservatives don’t care about stated principles when it suits, so why should I care when they’re invoked against something I want? Or indeed just want to be ruled by a belligerent Orange King (us Norn Irish can understand the appeal)
It’s not necessarily about building bridges across the aisle, it’s that self-policing exists internally. The wider left aren’t exactly great at the former either. But they do tend to criticise their own more.
As I said recently, I don't see the need to spent so much time trashing Trump around here for a few reasons. First, there's no one to actually have a discussion with. Yes, tariffs are bad. Glad we agree! Now what?
Second, I recall having this conversation every so often, including with you. But then I watch people support murder in public, or voting for a man who fantasized about wanting his opponents children shot, and I realize there isn't really that much to discuss. The pushback on those posts is incredibly limited. You've given me crap before for not criticizing Trump more and then when someone is gunned down in the street you shrugged. The level of self-debasement I'd have to put myself through to appeal to such people is not worth it.
And finally, as I said above, I still think that yes, Democrats are worse on basically every metric imaginable. Why I would focus on orange man bad to appease a bunch of murder fanatics who believe all their opponents are closet fascists is going to have to be explained.
I actually do get it, I like in a 95% conservative place, but still most of them think Trump is a moron. My point, which I stated already, is not that you vote Dem. But you should be like, we need to get this moron off the top of our ticket and stop running our country. I can't believe that you honestly think a guy who doesn't understand percentages is the right guy to broker trade deals. Especially when it is clear that he is making them based on who sucks up the most.
I can barely believe you want tariffs, since no fiscal conservative I have ever met thought they were a good idea before Trump started talking about them. But that aside, this guy is the one who is going to use them properly to make America stronger? The reason the Ontario ad pissed him off so much was because it is true and many Republicans love Reagan. That was a conservative government who made them as well.
Like I get you want something done about immigration, and something dramatic. But do you know how much this is costing? And how much it is actually working? Are you even getting more out than in? You are going to trust this guy to tell you real information? When he just flat lies about inflation (I mean everything always), but what he says about how the immigration is going is true? Like are you really that gullible? You can not trust any of the information this government spews, it is all to make them look good and they don't even bother hiding it and you cheer them for tricking you. It's lunacy.
If a Dem accepted a multi hundred million dollar plane from a foreign government would you be OK with it? Of course not because you know that there are strings attached and those strings are not in Americas interest, they are in the other country who gave the bribe. But Trump taking them is good? He is taking tons!
Maybe you think bailing out Argentina is a good deal after you gift wrapped them all of China Soy bean sales, for reasons. But I can't imagine you think doing it again and then buying a whole shit ton of their cattle to fuck your own farmers was good? Are you a protectionist with tariffs or what?
So many were for Trump because he would not tart wars, was a man of peace. How is that working out? What is going on with Venezuela? WTF is that costing? No where near any sort of ROI on the tiny couple of drug boats they sunk.
Hows that blanced budget coming?
What I'm getting at, and there is way more examples, is that Trump is a populist liar. He has told you he is a conservative and you believed it. He is clearly not one, and only interested in attention and wealth for himself. He is comically stupid, and the lies are not remotely smart and change by the week.
The ask isn't that you vote Dem, or become a socialist. It is that you be a conservative, hold those values and hold your own party accountable. Not be a useful idiot for the MAGA ideocracy because they wear your jersey.
That is actually exactly the same thing that was asked of GH. Stop pretending that Maduro is actually fighting capitalists from his billion dollar palace. Start actually trying to make the Dem party better. Hasn't "primary the bad dems" been said to him 1000 times.
There is no irony, just logical consistency. You might not be used to that given that what Trump tells you is good changes by the week.
edit: Also to your comment to wombat. How often were people called fascists before Trump? Could it not be possible (even likely) that people do not think that conservatives are fascists, but rather they the think Trump and his group are fascists? Have you even bothered to read what a fascist is and does? It is Trump, he hits like almost every point.
1. Powerful, often exclusionary, populist nationalism centered on cult of a redemptive, “infallible” leader who never admits mistakes. 2. Political power derived from questioning reality, endorsing myth and rage, and promoting lies. 3. Fixation with perceived national decline, humiliation, or victimhood. 4. White Replacement “Theory” used to show that democratic ideals of freedom and equality are a threat. Oppose any initiatives or institutions that are racially, ethnically, or religiously harmonious. 5. Disdain for human rights while seeking purity and cleansing for those they define as part of the nation. 6. Identification of “enemies”/scapegoats as a unifying cause. Imprison and/or murder opposition and minority group leaders. 7. Supremacy of the military and embrace of paramilitarism in an uneasy, but effective collaboration with traditional elites. Fascists arm people and justify and glorify violence as “redemptive”. 8. Rampant sexism. 9. Control of mass media and undermining “truth”. 10. Obsession with national security, crime and punishment, and fostering a sense of the nation under attack. 11. Religion and government are intertwined. 12. Corporate power is protected and labor power is suppressed. 13. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts not aligned with the fascist narrative. 14. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Loyalty to the leader is paramount and often more important than competence. 15. Fraudulent elections and creation of a one-party state. 16. Often seeking to expand territory through armed conflict.
Well I didn't vote for him so I did my part to "get him off the ticket" if that's what you want. Again, you have no idea what is said elsewhere.
I have repeatedly said the tariffs are bad, I think they are actually his biggest mistake so far. They a counter-productive at home and they make rallying our allies against adversaries that much more difficult. I wouldn't even tarriff the Europeans! There are other ways of getting them to pay for their own defense.
What's happening with immigration is the natural counter reaction. You have to have rules, and Biden spent four years ignoring them, and now enforcing them is going to hurt. It's always a tough question of how strictly to you start enforcing rules once a pattern of breaking them has emerged. and now some people who previously wouldn't have been deported now will be. probably should have considered that when dems spent years denying there was even anything wrong.
Of course Trump shouldn't accept the plane.
I don't mind helping Argentina.
Trump's foreign policy has been his best aspect so far (tariffs excluded). Dem weak FP as usual is awful.
You seem to be attributing to me a lot of positions I have never offered about Trump? Like again, no Trump doesn't care about a balanced budget, but if dems got their way they'd blow everything out as their projected tax revenue never lived up to expectations, and it would be used to support tons of government growth that I fundamentally disagree with.
Again, and I know you have a special hatred for GH, but you have to realize I am thinking in similar terms. Yes, Trump sucks. Yes, I wish it were a different Republican. No, banging on about it here does nothing.
On November 04 2025 22:28 Billyboy wrote: @introvert
“We have no inflation,” President Donald Trump said in his “60 Minutes” interview Sunday evening. “Our groceries are down.”
You OK with him just blatantly lying? And do you think Republicans will not notice that prices are up because Trump said so?
What a crazy world.
The strategy seems to be to go full-on 1984 doublethink.
It is insane to watch from the outside.
On November 04 2025 23:05 Introvert wrote:
On November 04 2025 22:28 Billyboy wrote: @introvert
“We have no inflation,” President Donald Trump said in his “60 Minutes” interview Sunday evening. “Our groceries are down.”
You OK with him just blatantly lying? And do you think Republicans will not notice that prices are up because Trump said so?
What a crazy world.
Huh? Why are you asking me about this? No, I don't like lying but people are inured to Trump's... mis-statements. Besides, dems are too busy shutting down the government and arguing about their various issues of concern to talk much about prices. It's no wonder their image is still in the toilet. We'll have to see if they improve on 2024 margins in elections tonight, if they don't... that's yikes. Maybe then they will learn something. But winning will probably hide their problems. Might even elect as AG the guy who wished his opponent's children were shot and killed, so everyone is off their rocker atm
On November 04 2025 23:44 Introvert wrote: Breaking news: conservative thinks Democrats a worse party than Republicans. More at 11. What people want is endless "Republican bad" to the point where they tie themselves into logical knots repeatedly. Thr shutdown is just the latest example. The only "acceptable" answer is that it's the GOP's fault even though it only happened because of senate Democrats. There is nothing I could even say at this point that would be accepted.
The hope is that at some point the not stupid Republicans will go "Holy shit it is an embarrassment and absolutely terrible for our country that we have a compulsive lying, dumb, narcissistic, nepo baby who openly takes bribes leading out party, this is bad thing."
Hell you do not even need to vote Dem, you could just join the Republicans and against Trump and try to pry your party out of the stupidest era. I can not understand how you Americans treat politics like team sports and support your parties guy no matter how clearly incompetent he is. It is also incredibly stupid that what is "winning" to people seems to be beating the other party and not making the country better.
Your country is on the fast track to becoming a shit hole and you are there cheering for it because you get to beat the dems. It is so painful to watch.
Hard as it may be for you to believe, I do on the whole think Republican policy positions are better for the country than Democrat ones. You have no idea what I say to people on "my side" since there aren't any of them here. It is interesting how you and many other posters continue to think this is just about making sure "my team" wins, as if I couldn't have good reasons for preferring it. You'd hope that people who spend hours upon hours lecturing GH on being a team player might grasp this but I guess it's too complicated.
On November 05 2025 02:42 WombaT wrote:
On November 04 2025 23:44 Introvert wrote: Breaking news: conservative thinks Democrats a worse party than Republicans. More at 11. What people want is endless "Republican bad" to the point where they tie themselves into logical knots repeatedly. Thr shutdown is just the latest example. The only "acceptable" answer is that it's the GOP's fault even though it only happened because of senate Democrats. There is nothing I could even say at this point that would be accepted.
I mean, trying might help?
In a more generalised sense. Many people want their ‘team’ to win, of course. If one is losing though, so long as the game is played in the right spirit, as it were that goes a distance.
Outside these particular walls, sure it might be different. Within them, I would wager that getting Republicans to go ‘GOP’ bad isn’t a particular aspiration.
It would be conservatives having their own red lines, and acting accordingly. Something like that anyway, some self-regulation.
I mean I must have made similar posts on this theme at least 10 times prior. So expanding much is a bit redundant.
You can collectively do that, and have a slightly more civil wider discourse, or not.
Wider conservatism can’t have civil discourse with those who disagree with that creed if it reflexively defends everything the God King does, even the stuff that contravenes their ostensible principles.
The natural conclusion becomes that conservatives don’t care about stated principles when it suits, so why should I care when they’re invoked against something I want? Or indeed just want to be ruled by a belligerent Orange King (us Norn Irish can understand the appeal)
It’s not necessarily about building bridges across the aisle, it’s that self-policing exists internally. The wider left aren’t exactly great at the former either. But they do tend to criticise their own more.
As I said recently, I don't see the need to spent so much time trashing Trump around here for a few reasons. First, there's no one to actually have a discussion with. Yes, tariffs are bad. Glad we agree! Now what?
Second, I recall having this conversation every so often, including with you. But then I watch people support murder in public, or voting for a man who fantasized about wanting his opponents children shot, and I realize there isn't really that much to discuss. The pushback on those posts is incredibly limited. You've given me crap before for not criticizing Trump more and then when someone is gunned down in the street you shrugged. The level of self-debasement I'd have to put myself through to appeal to such people is not worth it.
And finally, as I said above, I still think that yes, Democrats are worse on basically every metric imaginable. Why I would focus on orange man bad to appease a bunch of murder fanatics who believe all their opponents are closet fascists is going to have to be explained.
So what? Why does any of that matter?
Trump being a complete disgrace of a President can co-exist with those criticisms of other actors.
One can also be a conservative while not supporting Trump, it’s emminently possible, indeed I’d argue that Trump is that divorced from general conservative principles that it should be the default.
You’re supposed to have principles. Me not giving much of a shit that Charlie Kirk got shot shouldn’t upset the applecart too much.
But your cohort evidently doesn’t, so who cares? It’s a battle now, and next time it swings the other way your lot is fucked. Nobody is going to care about catering to the desires of decent conservatives if they’ve spent a cumulative 8 years sucking Donald Trump off and hand waving everything.
You used to say that I should criticize Trump more because it would show that I was being serious and arguing in good faith (paraphrase). Why I am supposed to assume good faith on the part of people who support all the things I mentioned above. Why am I supposed to assume good faith on your part when you are more harsh on me for not criticizing Trump than you are yourself in criticizing those on the left who expound awful views? Is that not what you requested of me?
Are you getting the point yet? In a thread where the median opinion is that Donald Trump is a fascist who will try to serve a third term as president I'm supposed to take the same or more time criticizing him instead of that nutty belief itself. It's a silly thing to ask for from the one conservative in the thread. I have criticized him a lot over the years, all it got was demands that I do it more. meanwhile, people here have lost their minds.
It’s not a particular demand on you, but more generally, apologies if I didn’t stress that. That’s the problem, the more general absence of it in media, online, all over the shop. Which wasn’t the case when he first ran, or early on in his first term. There was plenty of criticism, even from people who were quite strong and visible supporters.
One’s criticism of one’s own tribe as it were shouldn’t be contingent on what other people do. And yeah it does show good faith as it demonstrates that on areas you don’t align with the other side on, that you’ll at least police internally as it were.
It’s not an imposition to agree, the idea is for some consistency on just those areas of non-alignment.
I am pro-choice myself, but I’m probably more sympathetic to the pro-life crowd than many of my general political persuasion. Anyway, within what I’m suggesting, I wouldn’t seek to find agreement with a hypothetical hardcore pro-life person. If, however, hypothetical hardcore pro-life person gave a prominent figure on their side a complete pass on having a fully elective abortion, I’d have to question why, and their bona fides.
Extrapolate that out, and pretty across the board and the idea of good faith gets massively eroded. Indeed, I’d say part of the fear of Trump = Fascist dictator comes precisely from that place. ‘We’ cant really do shit right now, and his base seemingly have few red lines they’d drag him over crossing.
We’re seeing this a bit in the UK too, your more traditional conservatives are morphing to be more MAGA equivalent. And with that the bridge of ‘agree to disagree’ starts to collapse. And things become rather toxic when it does.
20 minutes of Mamdani’s NYC mayoral victory speech... the charisma of Obama and the platform of Sanders.
He starts off by thanking everyone, then lists his mayoral agenda and topics he wants to address (from buses and corporate greed, to homelessness and the mental health crisis, to both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia), and then calls out Trump.
On November 03 2025 23:40 Gorsameth wrote: For many Americans missing 1 paycheck is a big problem, how about missing 2? Can Trump conjure another check for the military out of a hat?
Its only a matter of time before the people literally revolt. That is where this ends, when the Republican caucus betrays Trump to save their own hides, potentially literally.
Obviously the juxtaposition of “we’re not funding SNAP because we don’t want to” with the ballroom, bathroom remodeling, Great Gatsby-themed party, etc. has a lot of “let them eat cake” vibes to it. Nothing foments revolt quite like mass starvation.
I’m almost tempted to suspect it’s intentional? I definitely think a lot of the invasions of blue cities were done partly in hopes of sparking some kind of rebellion they could crush. That would have been a smaller scale thing, though, something you could be confident in suppressing with force. 40 million Americans without SNAP and a military months without a paycheck seems like an insane danger to intentionally court.
Honestly, though, I’d still probably give the chances of something like that before end of year less than 50%. That’s just not really a mode Americans have. They could learn it but I think that’s not something that can happen in a few weeks.
I mean the Senate could at any time vote to allow a vote on the clean CR which would then pass, and includes SNAP. But also, whether legal or not, the administration has announced they will tap the USDA contingency fund to disburse SNAP benefits, which will cover not even a month's worth. There are limits to what the government can fund when Congress doesn't give them the money to fund it.
Getting into what “clean CR” means in this context is the argument I was skipping with Intro, and I’ll skip it here if it’s all the same to you.
It’s interesting, though, how ICE and Trump’s ballroom keep funding, even though embassy workers or soldiers or SNAP do not. What’s going on there, do you think?
The ballroom is still privately funded. Congress passed a law to fund ICE months ago. They have not passed a law to fund SNAP and the military past the funding lapse at the end of the fiscal year, meaning the beginning of October. That is the extent of what is "going on." Congress has to pass laws to fund the government every year. The executive branch, meaning the government, can't just wizard itself money.
Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually.
They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years.
On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either.
The CR the Senate blocked 12+ times funded SNAP in the interim.
If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it.
I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true.
"Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want.
The obvious difference being that SNAP has not historically been affected by shutdowns and the most vulnerable in society depend on it to eat?
You’re making some facile arguments (some of which Intro also made) which I’m pretty sure both of you are informed enough to understand why they’re wrong, so let’s see if we can do this quickly:
The whole premise of the budgetary process is that two parties have different priorities of what to fund, and if neither has big enough margins to pass it unilaterally, they have to come to an agreement. Some of those priorities are shared, some are valued more by one side than the other, and some are supported by one side and explicitly opposed by the other. You can imagine one side supporting A, B, C, and D, not caring about E, and hating F. Meanwhile the other side supports A, B, E, and F, doesn’t care about C, and hates D. So a compromise might look like “let’s fund ABCE” – while “let’s fund ABC” would really be a clear victory for one side and capitulation by the other.
The shutdown is designed into this process as a looming threat forcing both sides to the table to avoid ugly consequences. That’s intentional. It might seem stupid to intentionally drive toward a cliff make the parties agree about how to steer away from it – I’ve always thought so – but that’s the way it’s designed. Then the idea is that whichever party is being more intransigent in negotiations should take the blame for whatever destruction is caused by the shutdown.
But how do you decide which party is being intransigent? If I’m at a market negotiating to buy something, and the seller is asking for $400 while I’m offering $20, one of us is probably being unreasonable but how do you know which without some idea of what the “true” price is? In previous shutdowns Republicans demanded Democrats fund or defund things in direct opposition to their policy goals, but if those demands are in line with public opinion, isn’t that how democracy *should* work? You have to define a baseline “reasonable” budget to decide whose demands are deviating too much from that baseline.
Here it’s historically been Democrats putting a lot of rhetorical weight on the “clean CR.” The premise is this: what if we just keep funding everything at current levels? You can’t accuse us of intransigence when we’re not even making any demands beyond the status quo. If our opponents shut down the government instead of agreeing to that, it must be them who’s to blame, right?
Now Republicans have never bought that argument in the past, and I doubt you or Intro have either, but it’s worth noting that the rhetorical weight of it depends on the fact that nothing is supposed to change on that path. If Democrats had used some questionable legal maneuvering to ensure that 51% of our military budget was funneled directly to Hamas, and the “clean CR” would maintain and ratify that arrangement, Republicans would rightly argue that there’s nothing reasonable or bipartisan about the status quo, and insisting their opponents vote to continue it is, in fact, intransigence. So, I mean, I find the timing of coming around to the “clean CR” argument suspicious – you’ve never bought that before, why now? – but I also think it just doesn’t apply the same way right now.
As a side note, the “Republicans voted to fund the government, and Democrats blocked it!” argument is asinine and I think you understand that. Rs have their proposal, Ds have another proposal, they both support their own proposal and oppose the other. Rs currently have the power to decide what proposals get a vote, so they just kept holding votes on their proposal. That has no bearing on whether they’re the ones making unreasonable/intransigent demands or not, and emphasizing the number of votes (“Ds voted 12+ times to shut down the government!” is even more asinine. It’s a clear indicator that you’re saying things you know don’t matter because you think they’ll have rhetorical weight, which is rapidly entering the “bad faith” area of argumentation.
And if you’re wondering, yes, this is the argument I was hoping to save us both the time of having, so I lost that battle I guess.
I was also going to ignore this but I'll be quick. The healthcare subsidies were, and always have been, a separate thing from what is in the funding bills. Dems did it separately, it is spending *on top of* what is regular. It expires on a date dems set. That expiration date is, it will noted, NOT the same time as government funding generally. This fact you seem to have missed is a hard thing to explain for both your "it's not a clean CR if it doesn't fund our expanded subsidies" AND your "Republicans are being the intransigent ones" point. Voting for the CR now has absolutely no effect on the thing Dems are holding out for. As multiple dems have now noted, this shutdown is "leverage" for getting what they want. Normally you pass short term funding bills while negotiating, that used to be ideal. They can't even get that far.
Second, the only reason government is not open is because of senate democrats. SNAP would be funded, and the subsidies have not expired. I get the unwillingness to bite the bullet and admit you think what's happening is worth it for the subsidies but the exercises you are going through to make this Republicans fault is unbecoming. I would love to go aback to 2013 and see if dems here would now think that senate democrats should have negotiated over Obamacare with the likes of Ted Cruz. Just own it
I didn’t miss it, I just think you’re letting the procedural details obscure the bigger picture. Procedurally, it’s true, the healthcare subsidies are “separate.” But the Republican position is that we should fund the government and let those subsidies expire; the Democrat position is that we should fund the government and extend the subsidies.
This is why I went into *why* the “clean CR” would have rhetorical weight. It’s not that the syllables “clean CR” are a magic incantation which automatically makes your negotiating position the reasonable one; it’s that the “clean CR” is committing to a position which does not change the status quo. Under the Republican plan, a lot of people’s healthcare premiums go way up ($1500/month going to $4000/month are numbers I’ve seen, anecdotally). Under the Democrat plan, they don’t. The Democrats think their position is the reasonable one, and intransigent Republicans are so insistent on ending the subsidies that they’ll shut down the government to ensure it. I might argue the Democrats *should* be shutting down the government to advance a non-status quo position (rescinding all that ICE funding, for instance) but that wouldn’t matter because everyone knows they won’t.
Incidentally, if I went back to 2013 (or any of the other shutdowns where Dems were offering a “clean CR”) would I find an Introvert agreeing “Republicans are shutting down the government with their intransigence”? I have a guess, but we could dig into politics threads from back then if we wanted to check.
The CR dems are rejecting expires before the subsidies. That's part of my point. And you are trying to redefine what these government funding bills even are. You are linking two things that are simply were not linked until dems decided to link them. Listen, were one to go through my post history you won't find much opposition to shutdown politics. But dems are being dishonest by trying to claim they are the ones fighting while also blaming their opposition for the consequences of the fight.
So your issue is that Dems aren’t willing to do a short-term CR and shut down the government a month from now? What would be the point? If Republicans are willing to extend the subsidies they might as well just do it now. If they’re not, and public opinion is against them on it, Dems should hammer them on it until they concede. Isn’t that how this is supposed to work?
Presumably by the logic that "shutdowns hurt people" doing it later is obviously better? Especially since the political pressure will be higher as expiration time comes and goes? They have, by their own previously stated logic, caused pain and suffering but are trying to avoid saying so.
I think just shoveling more money into it is a bad idea, but what I want is some honesty. Hard to expect from politicians, but I have (had) at least some hope that many dems here would be more...forthright. "Yes we are shutting it down, and this is why!"
For those who actually support what they are doing i say: go nuts! Have at it.
I’d think it’s best for everyone to know a few months in advance whether their premiums are going up $2000/month than to find out a few days before whether it’s actually happening. If Republicans are just going to make it into a shutdown in a month or two, why not do it now?
I mean, this is a bit silly because we’re talking about the narrow meta-policy question “how do we decide who to blame for a shutdown?” and I’ve given my arguments. You apparently don’t agree, but you’re not really responding to them, you’re just lamenting my dishonesty, meaning you apparently think I don’t believe them either. Of course I’m in my own head and know that I do believe them, but I have no way of proving that to you so… fine, whatever I guess? I could infer dishonest argumentation on your part too but I don’t really know that so whatever.
Meanwhile oBlade is over here trying to draw a distinction between “policy” and “budget” negotiations – I gather that going from $0 to $10 for a program is a “policy” proposal while going from $10 to $20 is a “budget” proposal – and arguing that making “policy” demands rather than “budget” demands is what makes the Dem position unreasonable. I don’t find that persuasive, but I do think he probably actually believes the thing he’s saying. Making hay over the “12+ cloture” votes is, imo, a bad-faith effort to turn a trivial fact (Republicans were able to bring votes on their proposal but didn’t have enough votes for cloture) into a subjective opinion (the shutdown is the Dems fault) that doesn’t really have anything to do with the trivial fact he’s stating. But maybe I’m too uncharitable, maybe if the Dems held the chamber and were insisting on a budget that included universal healthcare and UBI, and the Republicans blocked cloture, he’d be saying “the Republicans are the ones that shut down the government because they blocked cloture.”
Maybe it’s worth moving on to a new aspect of the issue? From what I understand, Trump is arguing that Republicans’ bad election night was a result of the shutdown, which apparently means he thinks voters are blaming Republicans for the shutdown (or maybe, in Intro speak, that they support the Democrats shutting down the government). If Trump is right, doesn’t that seem to imply Republicans should bite the bullet and agree to a deal that extends the subsidies? Both for their own electoral interests, and because that’s apparently what the American people want (and this is still supposed to be a democracy, right?)
On November 04 2025 22:28 Billyboy wrote: @introvert
“We have no inflation,” President Donald Trump said in his “60 Minutes” interview Sunday evening. “Our groceries are down.”
You OK with him just blatantly lying? And do you think Republicans will not notice that prices are up because Trump said so?
What a crazy world.
The strategy seems to be to go full-on 1984 doublethink.
It is insane to watch from the outside.
On November 04 2025 23:05 Introvert wrote:
On November 04 2025 22:28 Billyboy wrote: @introvert
“We have no inflation,” President Donald Trump said in his “60 Minutes” interview Sunday evening. “Our groceries are down.”
You OK with him just blatantly lying? And do you think Republicans will not notice that prices are up because Trump said so?
What a crazy world.
Huh? Why are you asking me about this? No, I don't like lying but people are inured to Trump's... mis-statements. Besides, dems are too busy shutting down the government and arguing about their various issues of concern to talk much about prices. It's no wonder their image is still in the toilet. We'll have to see if they improve on 2024 margins in elections tonight, if they don't... that's yikes. Maybe then they will learn something. But winning will probably hide their problems. Might even elect as AG the guy who wished his opponent's children were shot and killed, so everyone is off their rocker atm
On November 04 2025 23:44 Introvert wrote: Breaking news: conservative thinks Democrats a worse party than Republicans. More at 11. What people want is endless "Republican bad" to the point where they tie themselves into logical knots repeatedly. Thr shutdown is just the latest example. The only "acceptable" answer is that it's the GOP's fault even though it only happened because of senate Democrats. There is nothing I could even say at this point that would be accepted.
The hope is that at some point the not stupid Republicans will go "Holy shit it is an embarrassment and absolutely terrible for our country that we have a compulsive lying, dumb, narcissistic, nepo baby who openly takes bribes leading out party, this is bad thing."
Hell you do not even need to vote Dem, you could just join the Republicans and against Trump and try to pry your party out of the stupidest era. I can not understand how you Americans treat politics like team sports and support your parties guy no matter how clearly incompetent he is. It is also incredibly stupid that what is "winning" to people seems to be beating the other party and not making the country better.
Your country is on the fast track to becoming a shit hole and you are there cheering for it because you get to beat the dems. It is so painful to watch.
Hard as it may be for you to believe, I do on the whole think Republican policy positions are better for the country than Democrat ones. You have no idea what I say to people on "my side" since there aren't any of them here. It is interesting how you and many other posters continue to think this is just about making sure "my team" wins, as if I couldn't have good reasons for preferring it. You'd hope that people who spend hours upon hours lecturing GH on being a team player might grasp this but I guess it's too complicated.
On November 04 2025 23:44 Introvert wrote: Breaking news: conservative thinks Democrats a worse party than Republicans. More at 11. What people want is endless "Republican bad" to the point where they tie themselves into logical knots repeatedly. Thr shutdown is just the latest example. The only "acceptable" answer is that it's the GOP's fault even though it only happened because of senate Democrats. There is nothing I could even say at this point that would be accepted.
I mean, trying might help?
In a more generalised sense. Many people want their ‘team’ to win, of course. If one is losing though, so long as the game is played in the right spirit, as it were that goes a distance.
Outside these particular walls, sure it might be different. Within them, I would wager that getting Republicans to go ‘GOP’ bad isn’t a particular aspiration.
It would be conservatives having their own red lines, and acting accordingly. Something like that anyway, some self-regulation.
I mean I must have made similar posts on this theme at least 10 times prior. So expanding much is a bit redundant.
You can collectively do that, and have a slightly more civil wider discourse, or not.
Wider conservatism can’t have civil discourse with those who disagree with that creed if it reflexively defends everything the God King does, even the stuff that contravenes their ostensible principles.
The natural conclusion becomes that conservatives don’t care about stated principles when it suits, so why should I care when they’re invoked against something I want? Or indeed just want to be ruled by a belligerent Orange King (us Norn Irish can understand the appeal)
It’s not necessarily about building bridges across the aisle, it’s that self-policing exists internally. The wider left aren’t exactly great at the former either. But they do tend to criticise their own more.
As I said recently, I don't see the need to spent so much time trashing Trump around here for a few reasons. First, there's no one to actually have a discussion with. Yes, tariffs are bad. Glad we agree! Now what?
Second, I recall having this conversation every so often, including with you. But then I watch people support murder in public, or voting for a man who fantasized about wanting his opponents children shot, and I realize there isn't really that much to discuss. The pushback on those posts is incredibly limited. You've given me crap before for not criticizing Trump more and then when someone is gunned down in the street you shrugged. The level of self-debasement I'd have to put myself through to appeal to such people is not worth it.
And finally, as I said above, I still think that yes, Democrats are worse on basically every metric imaginable. Why I would focus on orange man bad to appease a bunch of murder fanatics who believe all their opponents are closet fascists is going to have to be explained.
I actually do get it, I like in a 95% conservative place, but still most of them think Trump is a moron. My point, which I stated already, is not that you vote Dem. But you should be like, we need to get this moron off the top of our ticket and stop running our country. I can't believe that you honestly think a guy who doesn't understand percentages is the right guy to broker trade deals. Especially when it is clear that he is making them based on who sucks up the most.
I can barely believe you want tariffs, since no fiscal conservative I have ever met thought they were a good idea before Trump started talking about them. But that aside, this guy is the one who is going to use them properly to make America stronger? The reason the Ontario ad pissed him off so much was because it is true and many Republicans love Reagan. That was a conservative government who made them as well.
Like I get you want something done about immigration, and something dramatic. But do you know how much this is costing? And how much it is actually working? Are you even getting more out than in? You are going to trust this guy to tell you real information? When he just flat lies about inflation (I mean everything always), but what he says about how the immigration is going is true? Like are you really that gullible? You can not trust any of the information this government spews, it is all to make them look good and they don't even bother hiding it and you cheer them for tricking you. It's lunacy.
If a Dem accepted a multi hundred million dollar plane from a foreign government would you be OK with it? Of course not because you know that there are strings attached and those strings are not in Americas interest, they are in the other country who gave the bribe. But Trump taking them is good? He is taking tons!
Maybe you think bailing out Argentina is a good deal after you gift wrapped them all of China Soy bean sales, for reasons. But I can't imagine you think doing it again and then buying a whole shit ton of their cattle to fuck your own farmers was good? Are you a protectionist with tariffs or what?
So many were for Trump because he would not tart wars, was a man of peace. How is that working out? What is going on with Venezuela? WTF is that costing? No where near any sort of ROI on the tiny couple of drug boats they sunk.
Hows that blanced budget coming?
What I'm getting at, and there is way more examples, is that Trump is a populist liar. He has told you he is a conservative and you believed it. He is clearly not one, and only interested in attention and wealth for himself. He is comically stupid, and the lies are not remotely smart and change by the week.
The ask isn't that you vote Dem, or become a socialist. It is that you be a conservative, hold those values and hold your own party accountable. Not be a useful idiot for the MAGA ideocracy because they wear your jersey.
That is actually exactly the same thing that was asked of GH. Stop pretending that Maduro is actually fighting capitalists from his billion dollar palace. Start actually trying to make the Dem party better. Hasn't "primary the bad dems" been said to him 1000 times.
There is no irony, just logical consistency. You might not be used to that given that what Trump tells you is good changes by the week.
edit: Also to your comment to wombat. How often were people called fascists before Trump? Could it not be possible (even likely) that people do not think that conservatives are fascists, but rather they the think Trump and his group are fascists? Have you even bothered to read what a fascist is and does? It is Trump, he hits like almost every point.
1. Powerful, often exclusionary, populist nationalism centered on cult of a redemptive, “infallible” leader who never admits mistakes. 2. Political power derived from questioning reality, endorsing myth and rage, and promoting lies. 3. Fixation with perceived national decline, humiliation, or victimhood. 4. White Replacement “Theory” used to show that democratic ideals of freedom and equality are a threat. Oppose any initiatives or institutions that are racially, ethnically, or religiously harmonious. 5. Disdain for human rights while seeking purity and cleansing for those they define as part of the nation. 6. Identification of “enemies”/scapegoats as a unifying cause. Imprison and/or murder opposition and minority group leaders. 7. Supremacy of the military and embrace of paramilitarism in an uneasy, but effective collaboration with traditional elites. Fascists arm people and justify and glorify violence as “redemptive”. 8. Rampant sexism. 9. Control of mass media and undermining “truth”. 10. Obsession with national security, crime and punishment, and fostering a sense of the nation under attack. 11. Religion and government are intertwined. 12. Corporate power is protected and labor power is suppressed. 13. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts not aligned with the fascist narrative. 14. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Loyalty to the leader is paramount and often more important than competence. 15. Fraudulent elections and creation of a one-party state. 16. Often seeking to expand territory through armed conflict.
Well I didn't vote for him so I did my part to "get him off the ticket" if that's what you want. Again, you have no idea what is said elsewhere.
I have repeatedly said the tariffs are bad, I think they are actually his biggest mistake so far. They a counter-productive at home and they make rallying our allies against adversaries that much more difficult. I wouldn't even tarriff the Europeans! There are other ways of getting them to pay for their own defense.
What's happening with immigration is the natural counter reaction. You have to have rules, and Biden spent four years ignoring them, and now enforcing them is going to hurt. It's always a tough question of how strictly to you start enforcing rules once a pattern of breaking them has emerged. and now some people who previously wouldn't have been deported now will be. probably should have considered that when dems spent years denying there was even anything wrong.
Of course Trump shouldn't accept the plane.
I don't mind helping Argentina.
Trump's foreign policy has been his best aspect so far (tariffs excluded). Dem weak FP as usual is awful.
You seem to be attributing to me a lot of positions I have never offered about Trump? Like again, no Trump doesn't care about a balanced budget, but if dems got their way they'd blow everything out as their projected tax revenue never lived up to expectations, and it would be used to support tons of government growth that I fundamentally disagree with.
Again, and I know you have a special hatred for GH, but you have to realize I am thinking in similar terms. Yes, Trump sucks. Yes, I wish it were a different Republican. No, banging on about it here does nothing.
On November 04 2025 22:28 Billyboy wrote: @introvert
“We have no inflation,” President Donald Trump said in his “60 Minutes” interview Sunday evening. “Our groceries are down.”
You OK with him just blatantly lying? And do you think Republicans will not notice that prices are up because Trump said so?
What a crazy world.
The strategy seems to be to go full-on 1984 doublethink.
It is insane to watch from the outside.
On November 04 2025 23:05 Introvert wrote:
On November 04 2025 22:28 Billyboy wrote: @introvert
“We have no inflation,” President Donald Trump said in his “60 Minutes” interview Sunday evening. “Our groceries are down.”
You OK with him just blatantly lying? And do you think Republicans will not notice that prices are up because Trump said so?
What a crazy world.
Huh? Why are you asking me about this? No, I don't like lying but people are inured to Trump's... mis-statements. Besides, dems are too busy shutting down the government and arguing about their various issues of concern to talk much about prices. It's no wonder their image is still in the toilet. We'll have to see if they improve on 2024 margins in elections tonight, if they don't... that's yikes. Maybe then they will learn something. But winning will probably hide their problems. Might even elect as AG the guy who wished his opponent's children were shot and killed, so everyone is off their rocker atm
On November 04 2025 23:44 Introvert wrote: Breaking news: conservative thinks Democrats a worse party than Republicans. More at 11. What people want is endless "Republican bad" to the point where they tie themselves into logical knots repeatedly. Thr shutdown is just the latest example. The only "acceptable" answer is that it's the GOP's fault even though it only happened because of senate Democrats. There is nothing I could even say at this point that would be accepted.
The hope is that at some point the not stupid Republicans will go "Holy shit it is an embarrassment and absolutely terrible for our country that we have a compulsive lying, dumb, narcissistic, nepo baby who openly takes bribes leading out party, this is bad thing."
Hell you do not even need to vote Dem, you could just join the Republicans and against Trump and try to pry your party out of the stupidest era. I can not understand how you Americans treat politics like team sports and support your parties guy no matter how clearly incompetent he is. It is also incredibly stupid that what is "winning" to people seems to be beating the other party and not making the country better.
Your country is on the fast track to becoming a shit hole and you are there cheering for it because you get to beat the dems. It is so painful to watch.
Hard as it may be for you to believe, I do on the whole think Republican policy positions are better for the country than Democrat ones. You have no idea what I say to people on "my side" since there aren't any of them here. It is interesting how you and many other posters continue to think this is just about making sure "my team" wins, as if I couldn't have good reasons for preferring it. You'd hope that people who spend hours upon hours lecturing GH on being a team player might grasp this but I guess it's too complicated.
On November 05 2025 02:42 WombaT wrote:
On November 04 2025 23:44 Introvert wrote: Breaking news: conservative thinks Democrats a worse party than Republicans. More at 11. What people want is endless "Republican bad" to the point where they tie themselves into logical knots repeatedly. Thr shutdown is just the latest example. The only "acceptable" answer is that it's the GOP's fault even though it only happened because of senate Democrats. There is nothing I could even say at this point that would be accepted.
I mean, trying might help?
In a more generalised sense. Many people want their ‘team’ to win, of course. If one is losing though, so long as the game is played in the right spirit, as it were that goes a distance.
Outside these particular walls, sure it might be different. Within them, I would wager that getting Republicans to go ‘GOP’ bad isn’t a particular aspiration.
It would be conservatives having their own red lines, and acting accordingly. Something like that anyway, some self-regulation.
I mean I must have made similar posts on this theme at least 10 times prior. So expanding much is a bit redundant.
You can collectively do that, and have a slightly more civil wider discourse, or not.
Wider conservatism can’t have civil discourse with those who disagree with that creed if it reflexively defends everything the God King does, even the stuff that contravenes their ostensible principles.
The natural conclusion becomes that conservatives don’t care about stated principles when it suits, so why should I care when they’re invoked against something I want? Or indeed just want to be ruled by a belligerent Orange King (us Norn Irish can understand the appeal)
It’s not necessarily about building bridges across the aisle, it’s that self-policing exists internally. The wider left aren’t exactly great at the former either. But they do tend to criticise their own more.
As I said recently, I don't see the need to spent so much time trashing Trump around here for a few reasons. First, there's no one to actually have a discussion with. Yes, tariffs are bad. Glad we agree! Now what?
Second, I recall having this conversation every so often, including with you. But then I watch people support murder in public, or voting for a man who fantasized about wanting his opponents children shot, and I realize there isn't really that much to discuss. The pushback on those posts is incredibly limited. You've given me crap before for not criticizing Trump more and then when someone is gunned down in the street you shrugged. The level of self-debasement I'd have to put myself through to appeal to such people is not worth it.
And finally, as I said above, I still think that yes, Democrats are worse on basically every metric imaginable. Why I would focus on orange man bad to appease a bunch of murder fanatics who believe all their opponents are closet fascists is going to have to be explained.
So what? Why does any of that matter?
Trump being a complete disgrace of a President can co-exist with those criticisms of other actors.
One can also be a conservative while not supporting Trump, it’s emminently possible, indeed I’d argue that Trump is that divorced from general conservative principles that it should be the default.
You’re supposed to have principles. Me not giving much of a shit that Charlie Kirk got shot shouldn’t upset the applecart too much.
But your cohort evidently doesn’t, so who cares? It’s a battle now, and next time it swings the other way your lot is fucked. Nobody is going to care about catering to the desires of decent conservatives if they’ve spent a cumulative 8 years sucking Donald Trump off and hand waving everything.
You used to say that I should criticize Trump more because it would show that I was being serious and arguing in good faith (paraphrase). Why I am supposed to assume good faith on the part of people who support all the things I mentioned above. Why am I supposed to assume good faith on your part when you are more harsh on me for not criticizing Trump than you are yourself in criticizing those on the left who expound awful views? Is that not what you requested of me?
Are you getting the point yet? In a thread where the median opinion is that Donald Trump is a fascist who will try to serve a third term as president I'm supposed to take the same or more time criticizing him instead of that nutty belief itself. It's a silly thing to ask for from the one conservative in the thread. I have criticized him a lot over the years, all it got was demands that I do it more. meanwhile, people here have lost their minds.
I am not attributing you those positions, those are Trumps position and given that Trump has a very obvious policy of loyalty over competency, whatever he says becomes the Republican position.
My point on immigration was not that you shouldn't want something done, it is that you have no idea if it is actually working, or how much it is costing because you have a liar in chief feeding you (obviously) wrong shit on everything. If he was an actual businessman, actually trying to improve the country he would be tracking true information so that he could make the best decisions. This is not happening on anything. It is just all about making both sides mad so he can get the most attention.
I'm glad you think he should not accept a bribe. Do you think there should be consequences for doing it? If not, then why wouldn't he and all future presidents (even ones from the bad guys) do the same thing?
Why is helping Argentina good when they are taking business directly from American farmers? What benefit does it have for America? Why is that good and USAID to starving people is bad?
What exactly do you like? Our countries economic policy is now to find new markets that are not the US, to sell and buy. We are not the only ones. I mean there are things he has done that I agree with, but those are the ones that go against his message and often are flip flopped multiple times in the process.
Has the government actually shrunk under Trump? The budget sure has not. The revenue taken in sure has.
It is more annoyance that hatred, a guy who claims for years and berates everyone for not being like him and then can't even make the one day effort to go to the biggest protest in US history. Which even if it is not going to do anything would be the greatest source of recruiting likeminded, frustrated people for his "activism" ever. It is also how he supports horrible fake socialists like Madruo because of the branding. Which is what the Republicans are becoming, you are supporting them because they say they are conservatives, but they are not. They do what benefits themselves personally and then pretend it is conservatism or to fight the dems.
It is also extremely short sighted, because what Trump is doing in destroying your rules and norms is absolutely going to be taken advantage of by the other side. The people are going to demand it. Who is going to be standing at the end is anyones guess but it is not going to be good for the American people no matter if its American Putin or Maduro that is left standing.
Did you bother reading the 16 point of fascism? Trump and his MAGA group hit the first first 14 and point 15,16 do not seem that far off.
EPT
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