Thursday marks the 30th day of the federal government shutdown and the American public has grown more concerned about the shutdown throughout the month and more disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling the federal government, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.
More Americans blame Trump and the Republicans in Congress than the Democrats for the shutdown, the poll finds.
I think republicans don’t care at all what the majority thinks. They understand fully that our Federal system is rigged from top to bottom to give rural landowners disproportional voting power. So you can just lie your ass off to the 30% of your base that is ride-or-die, and as long as that 30% happens to live in the right areas of the right swing states nothing else matters.
eh my life experience has thought me that there is a fine line between polls and wishful thinking
At this point, most Americans recognize that if Dems vote to end the shutdown, they are really surrendering health care for a large swath of American families. It will take 5 Dems to vote yes, and destroy American health care (making it worse than it already is). Any Dem that does that before this is resolved, should be officially primaried out of office.
Even many MAGAs see this, but are pretending to not see it, for the good of the party. But starting on Saturday, they will all have to come to grips with their new health care premiums, and most will realize that if the Dems vote Yes, those new high health insurance premiums become PERMANENT - and that is exactly what MAGA wants.
The Dems are winning the propaganda war for a change, and as of Saturday, they have the unassailable high ground to demand anything they want.
But what they will really do is eventually fold, thinking that if MAGA takes their health care away, they’ll just fight for it back after they win in 2026 and 2028. Then they’ll lose both of those elections to massive election fraud, that they will deny as hard as MAGA.
what healthcare? the insurance subsidies that go to private insurance companies that don’t have our best interest in mind?
democrats never intended to help did we would have living wages, more funding for education, less police, universal healthcare, etcetera
You must be too young to remember when American had ZERO options, other than to pay a lot of money for terrible health insurance. Now we have the same terrible options, but at least they cost less.
And Democrats are ACTIVELY working for all those things you mentioned.
Higher minimum wages:
Red states are still stuck at the Federal level of $7.25, but Blue states are higher, often twice as high or even higher. Even MAGA HQ Florida’s minimum wage is $15. It’s the Dems that have been working to lift wages and support unions and workers’ rights. Sure, they could always do more, but at least they aren’t actively moving us toward slavery, like MAGA.
More funding for education:
Yeah, Dems have ALWAYS been about that. It’s MAGAs who want to kill public education, and only let wealthy kids have decent PRIVATE educations. Have you ever heard a SINGLE Democrat call for the end of the Department of Education?
Less Police?
Are you paying attention at all? Dems are constantly taking fire for the very poor choice of the phrase “Defund the Police,” which MAGA was happy to smear Dems with.
Universal Health Care:
I wish more Dems were on board, but many are, and absolutely NO MAGAs are. If you want Universal Health Care of some sort, it’s going to come from the Dems, not MAGA.
There’s a big difference between not wanting something, and not accomplishing something. The Dems WANT all those things, they’ve just been bad at accomplishing them, due to their fundamental weaknesses as human beings, and their feral fear of being bullied by MAGAs. Lately, they have grown a bit more of a spine, but it may be too late.
If you want those things, you will only get them through a Democratic government. MAGA wants to take those things away, then kill you. Minimum wage? There’s no minimum wage. Education? Health Care? Pay for it. Can’t afford it? Too bad, you should have gotten a good education, so you could have a good job, given to you by your rich father’s fraternity brother.
Dems aren’t fundamentally evil, like MAGA, they are just frustratingly, infuriatingly weak and cowardly. They have the moral high ground on everything, and yet they refuse to use it. They are too fucking polite, and we will lose our Democracy over it.
Red states are still stuck at the Federal level of $7.25, but Blue states are higher, often twice as high or even higher.
The message to working people in red states is “we got ours, fuck you.”
It’s the Dems that have been working to lift wages and support unions and workers’ rights.
It’s the dems whose final message to working people was Sinema’s thumbs down.
Are you paying attention at all? Dems are constantly taking fire for the very poor choice of the phrase “Defund the Police,” which MAGA was happy to smear Dems with.
And dems were happy to have the excuse to, as biden gleefully said in a state of the union address “Fund the police!” He was clearly eager to get back to the brutal status quo. And he got a standing ovation for it.
There’s a big difference between not wanting something, and not accomplishing something. The Dems WANT all those things,
Enough lies. Democrats have been claiming to want things and then doing nothing to pursue them for decades. They dropped everything for netanyahu’s slightest whim, since it what they wanted to do. It’s the only time I’ve seen them chuck incrementalism out the window. It’s the only time I’ve seen them actually stand for something in the face of pushback.
If democrats were a quarter as serious about keeping their campaign promises as they were about giving netanyahu whatever he wanted, you wouldn’t be like “we totally wanted to do what we voted against. bEhInD tHe ScEnEs.”
You make no sense at all. Sinema was never any kind representative of the Dems. To use her treasonous record as representative of the Democratic agenda is wildly disingenuous, and destroys any credibility you have.
Stop thinking like a MAGA Traitor, and start thinking like an American.
Sinema was never any kind representative of the Dems.
Then they need a new messenger, because her thumbs down is the entire democratic message to workers.
Stop thinking like a MAGA Traitor
Stop acting like a class traitor.
You can struggle all you want to make Sinema the face of the Democratic Party, but the truth is that she is an irrelevant footnote, whose own constituents replaced her with a different Democrat. They literally fired her.
If you want an example of a Democrat standing up for workers, then point to Joe Biden attending the picket lines of various strikes, while he was campaigning for president. You can question his sincerity, but at least he was making the gesture, instead of demonizing them.
And “Class Traitor?” WTF is that? What “Class” do you think I belong to that I am betraying?I have never once thought of myself as belonging to ANY Class, other than my graduating class. Truly baffling.
You can struggle all you want to make Sinema the face of the Democratic Party
None has been more clear on labor.
biden’s appearance on one picket line was a photo op to try to gloss over how he had broken the rail strike.
And “Class Traitor?” WTF is that? What “Class” do you think I belong to that I am betraying?
Oh, you don’t like being called a traitor? Or is it only ok to use that word when you’re using it to claim that anyone to your left must be all the way to your right?
last democrat president fought for segregated schools and spearheaded crime bills designed to put people away in zoos for the rest of their life and was hugely religious plus loved big oil
president before that one was republican but worked with democrats notably walz who strongarmed oil pipeline protesters all on Native American land granted by treaties
the one before him was democrat for two terms who ran on a platform of hope\change but we ended up with private health insurance subsidies and no living wages or anything else
no point going back further all the same and do not want that high ground or politeness for the United States
Sure, blame Biden for his single vote in a complex political environment from 50 years ago, and then blame Obama for trying, but not fully accomplishing his agenda against a ferocious Republican Legislature who had openly pledged to wreck his presidency, even if they had to wreck America to do it. Mitch McConnell actually said that, then followed through. But it’s Obama’s fault for not accomplishing EVERYTHING.
Look, I’m no Democrat, I’ve been an Unaffiliated Independent since I registered to vote in 1977. I don’t like either party. But it is clear that one is trying - poorly, but trying. The other side is clearly, actively, enthusiastically, EVIL. Destroying America is literally entertaining for them.
The Democrats don’t operate in a vacuum, they are constantly under vicious attack by MAGA, who literally wants to kill them, and EVERYBODY on their side. Stop blaming them for not winning every battle against the evil, cheating MAGAs.
wait what battles have they won?
The ACA that MAGA is trying to kill, for one. Beating Trump in 2020, for another. They’ve had quite a few, but they’ve also taken some losses that were at least partially self-inflicted.
I get that politicians may get deadlocked, Belgium was almost 2 years without government not long ago.
But why does the US politicians deadlock impact public spending already allotted? Especially long running programs and public employees.
In the civilized world, budgets get extended until politicians manage to change it.
Laws were changed back around the 80s (I believe) to create this pressure. It used to be that people would still get paid, but apparently that was too functional for us.
Here’s the really bonkers thing: the actual budget is passed, they know exactly how much is meant for each agency. What’s been held up is actually putting that money in the account and authotizing the spending of it. We could have combined the two, and appropriated money in the same act that budgeted it. But we separate them, on purpose, to give the politicians more steps to negotiate things.
As far as I can tell, we are the only large country that separates budgets and appropriations like this. In most other countries, failure to fully fund the government would be seen as a sign of weakness in the government. But here, we have one party whose core mission is to shrink the size of Federal government. Conservatives here think that failing to fund the government shows strength.
the actual budget is passed, they know exactly how much is meant for each agency. What’s been held up is actually putting that money in the account and authotizing the spending of it
wow that’s actually wildly fucked
failure to fully fund the government would be seen as a sign of weakness in the government
in australia it’s not just a sign of weakness, it’s the end of your government. if you fail to pass a budget, basically the governor general (the crowns representative in australia) dismisses the government, appoints an interim government, and fresh elections are called as soon as possible
there are a few more options than this, but they all kinda amount to the same thing
How is this the first I am hearing that Belgium was just open for the taking?
And isn’t the deadlock not sposed to influence that like we’re supposed to have money for SNAP to continue.
In parliamentary systems, “not having a government” isn’t as catastrophic as it sounds. It varies by country, but generally speaking the Executive and Legislative branches are run together. When there is a clear party majority in the Parliament, that party gets to pick all the heads of the executive branch. When there is not a clear majority, but a coalition of parties that make up a majority, they negotiate which party gets to head which department.
When there is not even that coalition, nobody will agree on those department heads. The departments don’t grind to a halt in most cases. There are lower-level deputies who can take over day-to-day administration, and there are usually still funds available. But no big decisions can be made without the formal department head. It mainly runs in place. (And, without any majority in Parliament, odds are there are not any laws getting passed either).
In many countries, this condition of the Parliament existing with no governing majority can trigger a new election, so the Parliament can have a new chance to get out of its deadlock. Why was Belgium different? You’ll have to ask a Belgian.
What is going on in the US is much different. We have a government in place, it just can’t agree on funding executive agencies, and we have laws on the books that specifically restrict what agencies can do without funding. We could have structured things differently, but did not. Our politicians want this chaos, because they think they can gain politically from it.
This is such a stupid picture.
I love how any given political poll shows that 15-20% of people live under a rock and have no perspective of a situation, yet simultaneously claim some degree of political affiliation.
Like, if the #1 pressing issue of the day is a “not sure how I feel about this” situation for you, why do you even bother with pretending to not be entirely apolitical? Were not asking how you feel about a local school district board race where nobody can remember the names of the candidates, or how you feel about the civil war in Sudan. Were talking about the government being shutdown over one single sticking point. If you cant wrap your mind around the “complexity” of that situation then why the fuck are you going out of the way to answer polls? What use are you to a pollster if you dont know how you feel about this basic situation?
It’s still important info, we don’t want to only poll politically active people.
It feels hopeless, the aca will just be refunded and ERs will be full of uninsured debt ridden sick people. I remember having to go through that, please not again
I remember having to go through that, please not again
People in red states still have to go through that. Democrats don’t care at all.
EDIT: If they cared, they would have revisited the public option or attempted to close the loophole that lets red states opt out of medicaid expansion when they had a majority. They got theirs, so they don’t give a shit.
That’s not the democrats fault. That means the people voted for Republicans and chosen not to expand medicaid. Vote out the Republicans denying you Healthcare if that matters to you.
That’s not the democrats fault.
They didn’t pursue it at all during the most recent majority. Yes, it absolutely is their fault for not even trying at all.
My only hope is that democrats on the national level will stop being useless on purpose some day. My state is run by republicans and their opposition is more concerned with opposing progressives in primaries than winning general elections. I have no choice but to count on democrats to keep their campaign promises.
Since I deserve to go bankrupt and die for being outnumbered, according to you.
I don’t disagree with you that democrats need to be doing more. But when half of the country seems committed to tearing the country apart, passing multiple pieces of meaningful legislation (don’t forget things like Build Back Better) sadly feels like a high bar.
And I apologize for the accusatory tone, I know that’s not something directly in your control. But let’s also be honest, the Republicans are the ones preventing Healthcare expansion in your state, democrats may not be perfect, but they’re not the ones holding power in your state.
I don’t disagree with you that democrats need to be doing more. But when half of the country seems committed to tearing the country apart, passing multiple pieces of meaningful legislation (don’t forget things like Build Back Better) sadly feels like a high bar.
Oh, I haven’t forgotten about how democrats gutted build back better of any tangible individual benefit except for 10 discounted drugs for boomers who already got theirs.
And I apologize for the accusatory tone, I know that’s not something directly in your control.
Not accepted. You are fine with me suffering as long as you’re comfortable.
But let’s also be honest, the Republicans are the ones preventing Healthcare expansion in your state
And I deserve it because I’m outnumbered. Democrats doing nothing to rectify the problem their overcomplicated half measure caused is my fault because I’m from a red state so I deserve bankruptcy and death.
democrats may not be perfect, but they’re not the ones holding power in your state.
They had power at the national level. They chose to help netanyahu with that power instead, since it’s their only fucking priority.
I don’t think the Republicans really honestly give a shit if more people blame them or not.
I also honestly don’t think they intend to re-open the government anytime soon. Possibly ever.
They want Trump as a dictator, and they’re basically getting what they want with this, likely eventually arguing that Trump has to make the decisions because congress “no longer works.” They’ve always run on government not working and have spent the better part of fifty years working to make that a reality. Once the executive is the only branch of the government still functioning, they’ll have what they want.
The longer it is shutdown, the more essential agencies that keep people accountable and keep the country actually running will be shut down as they funnel more money into ICE and the military, the more authority they can hand off to the Executive branch. They will keep the IRS at bare minimum, but now that they’ve given ICE carte blanche to access citizens’ tax records, they will also use them to enforce tax code.
If people start rioting because of loss of services like SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, all the better for them so they can institute the Insurrection Act. Expect the Pinkertons (who still exist and will just go back to their old ways) and ICE or the military shooting striking workers to come back en vogue.
Also it’s clear that they’re preparing to either royally fuck with the next election or just cancel it entirely.
As much as I want to believe there is a way out of this, we may already be out of political and legal options to stop this madness.
I will be very unsurprised if they end up giving Blackwater a fucking enormous contract and then set them lose on the public. They have… shall we say, quite a track record in Iraq.
Yeah, the run up for ICE is too slow, and they’re not coming out of the pipe willing to kill people. Blackwater and the various other mercenaries in the US (don’t care what hairs you wanna split, they’re mercenaries) absolutely are willing to massacre whoever so long as their paycheck cashes.
I shall serve the new Pacifica republic then o7
All true. But, the Democrats have the same goal of neutering Congress and having a President-King. They just want to be the ones in charge. If they do regain the WH in 2028 or beyond, I bet they’ll happily go on issuing executive orders and deploying the military domestically.
I dunno why we expected anything different. Congress has been neutering itself since at least WWII and the Executive has been getting away with overreach almost the entire history of the country. This is what we get.
Trump is a uniquely vile and soulless figure who tapped into a sufficiently large voter base, which is just what the Oligarchy needed to shed the last trappings of our “democracy”.
the Democrats have the same goal of neutering Congress and having a President-King.
This is completely untrue. Democrats LOVE to prove that they respect the peaceful transition of power so much, that it feels like they like to lose, just to prove what good losers they are, and show Republicans how it’s done.
And Republicans be like: Fuck you, we’re taking it, whether you like it or not.
IMO, the Democratic leadership is opposed to having a king, for a simple reason: deniable plausibility. By having many different yet anonymous fingers in the pie of power, elites get to set policy and make deals without suffering consequences.
This is opposite to the GOP style, which uses blatant aggression to simply break stuff and loot openly. The important critters of both parties suck, it is just that one steals things when you aren’t looking, and won’t break your nose.
I hope that if things are settled positively, that we get rid of First Past the Post voting. It is political inbreeding, and our parties have become Hapsburgs.
Political Hapsburgs, I like it.
I simply meant that Democrats also want power concentrated in the Executive branch. I wasn’t referring to transfer of power.
Though, if prosecuting your political opponents after each transfer of power becomes normalized, just you watch the Dems embrace lifelong presidencies as well.
The Dems have never done ANYTHING that could be interpreted as “concentrating power in the Executive Branch.”
Cite one source/example.
I used a search engine for like 30 seconds and found plenty of examples. I’ll just link one that has a long list of both Dems and Reps throughout history exercising power that the Executive is not supposed to have: https://www.usconstitution.net/presidential-constitutional-violations/
In modern times (Post-WWII), not one president has attempted to consolidate power in the comprehensive way that MAGA is attempting. It is unprecedented, and it is disingenuous to equate occasional instances of political overreach with the systematic dismantling of our entire political and economic infrastructure.
Either stop making excuses for MAGA traitors, or admit that you are a traitor yourself.
Not once have I made excuses for MAGA. And I explicitly said that Republicans are worse than Dems and that Trump is uniquely bad (maybe in a different sub-thread from this one - it’s hard to tell with all the ignorant hate that came my way in this post). But you clearly have no interest in responding to what I actually say - you only want to attack the caricature of me that you’ve built in your head.
So I’ll offer you an ultimatum analogous to the one you offered me: stop pretending that only one party in America is fascist or admit that you’re a fascist yourself.
And your evidence for this claim comes from where?
Roughly the same location as where their head is stored
Why don’t you try doing research instead of insulting people who say things that make you feel uncomfortable?
- Both parties throughout the 20th century have supported giving away Congressional power to declare war.
- Kennedy bombed Vietnam without Congressional approval and tried to overthrow Castro without congressional approval. Democrats in Congress didn’t do much to try to stop him.
- Obama set the precedent of assassinating American citizens with drones, again without Congressional approval or a declaration of war.
These are just a few examples off the top of my head. There are plenty more. Its an issue the duopoly agrees on.
I need to know whatever the fuck you are smoking, because it’s clearly the strongest stuff I’ve heard of.
Comparing an electorate who values qualifications, competency, and a social safety net to a populist, hateful cult is quite the leap. Same goes for the representatives that they support.
There is no perfect candidate. Positive change will be iterative, not transformative. The peaceful transfer of power, deference to experts (republicans terminated the Chevron deference, but it was respected by all Democrat administrations) and other programs targeted to benefit the general public (ACA being the largest victory) were the hallmarks of Democrat policies. Did each of those administrations have flaws? Of course! That’s not equitable to the times we are in, however.
Fuck off with this “both sides are poison” rhetoric. Your vote’s power comes from your contribution to how iterations are performed, or in this case, stopping the bleeding cause by these Republican-inflicted wounds.
Alternatively, if you’re an astroturfer being paid a dollar to post this, great job. Your boss should give you a raise, and a passerby should have the good decency to slash your tires before you head home from the office.
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Lately I’ve been smoking Chomsky but I have sampled many of the finest intellectuals.
Also, I vote Democrat almost all the time because they are the lesser of two evils. And when I’m not voting Democrat, it’s because I can afford to vote 3rd party, either because there are no Republicans in the race or because the Democrat is all-but-guaranteed to win. But I’m sure none of that will matter to you, as you’re so quick to assume I’m just a troll. Right, anyone who says anything you disagree with is a troll? That seems to be the general consensus here.
there obviously not being a perfect candidate does not mean we should vote for any of the two parties that have consistently done good for their owner class and their own pockets over the citizens
Real mindfuck for ya: I vote for Democrats and also criticize them - because I’m not a mindless fucking lemming.
if a tried food does not taste good the first time and sends you to the bathroom but you try it again thinking maybe hands were not washed or something but instead back on the toilet but afterwards go back again and again just to wind up with a sore hole and nothing to show for it
then why keep doing it? what are the supporting facts for continuing to vote straight blue or red?
are the voting machines even owned by the government or are they privately owned?
whole thing sounds more rigged than both sides
I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but yes, it is rigged, and having only two choices, both of whom are beholden to a few rich and powerful interests, is part of the rigging.
democrats really got to you
can stop now those boots are wet as fuck
our minimum wage is frozen at $7.25, no universal healthcare, out of control police, environment is getting trashed, education is not being properly funded, and list goes on
More ad hominem with no actual retort to anything I said. Brilliant.
All true. But, the Democrats have the same goal of neutering Congress and having a President-King.
Are you on crack?
“both-sides” crack
Both sides work for the Oligarchy. They do a nice good-cop/bad-cop routine, and the Republicans are definitely the bad cops. So I vote for Dems when it matters. And I vote for 3rd party when it won’t cause harm (i.e. when Dems are guaranteed to win). I hope that helps clarify the type of crack that I’m on.
Meanwhile, you seem to be on the most potent crack of all - American propaganda. Try reading some Chomsky or Howard Zinn or just learning history beyond what you slept through in high school before making more dumb comments.
I am not even from the US. The only reason I follow US politics is because my country’s politics love suckling the toes of the POTUS without fail no matter what they do or who is in charge.
What seems to be here is more you being radicalised. It can be for good reasons and I am not in your mind, but nobody is going to agree with you no matter who they are.
What’s annoying and obnoxious is how many left-leaning people in the US rightfully denounce authoritarian, unconstitutional, and imperial behavior of the US government when a Republican is in office but then ignore the same behavior when a Democrat does it. And if I point this out I’m smeared as a troll or closet MAGA or just, as you have here, an obnoxious person. We will never even approach the ideals expressed in our founding documents until enough of our population wakes up to the fact that both parties are puppets of corporate forces that actively oppose democracy and only value the welfare of the general population to the extent that they can use us as labor and consumers.
By the way, not sure which country you’re from but I’m sorry on behalf of America that we have subordinated your country to our imperial nonsense.
Ugh, the mindless ad hominem attacks of the willfully uninformed are so tiring.
lol you’re ridiculous.
You’re tragically uninformed.
I thought Lemmy was the place for actual leftists to find other informed people to talk to. Apparently its just more thoroughly propagandized morons based on the response to my post.
For the record, I almost always vote Democrat and have never voted for a Republican. And I made it clear to anyone who actually read my comment that I think Trump is uniquely dangerous and awful. But I’m sure none of that will matter to any of you puppets.
You sure are out here winning hearts and changing minds with that attitude.
Given that the responses I got to my original comment were mostly devoid of actual counter-arguments and were mainly just attacks on my character, I have scant evidence that there are any minds here for me to change.
No taxation without representation.
A shut down government isn’t representing anyone. So it should come out of taxes.
The explosive growth of gig jobs that count as contracted work that don’t automatically take taxes out of pay may accidentally be the best way to achieve this.
Because if you work a traditional job, generally your taxes get pulled and sent to the Federal government automatically every paycheck unless you have asked for an amount to be withheld from that (and I don’t actually know if you can withhold all your tax money from being taken out of paychecks or not).
There’s also options like this that I found on (slight retch) reddit:
DISCLAIMER: This is not an endorsement to not pay your taxes. This is a thought experiment about how such a thing could be achieved.
Interesting idea.
The book Rich Dad, Poor Dad was really influential in convincing people to start their own business, even if it was just a side business, in order to get the most tax benefits. His entire premise was that rich people do this stuff all the time, and the average person can tap into those same strategies, once they own a business to apply those strategies to.
Intriguing. Any tax pros willing to weigh in?
They’ll likely kick the can with a CR and they’ll do it all over again.
They’re talking about doing away with the filibuster, which would lower the number of votes they need.
Should have done it 30 years ago
What is a CR?
Continuing Resolution
