Democrats have only hardened their position as the government shutdown enters its 23rd day, leaving Republican majorities in Congress with few answers — and many criticisms.

For the 12th time, Senate Democrats blocked the Republican Party's government funding legislation this week without a single senator switching his or her vote.

Just three Democratic caucus members voted for the bill: John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Angus King, I-Maine. That means Republicans are still five votes short of the 60-vote threshold to ensure passage of the bill, just as they have been since before the government shut down 23 days ago.

Democratic voters had pressured their party to take a more confrontational posture toward Trump in the shutdown battle. The new stance may be paying off with the party’s base.

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[–] 204 points 1 year ago (16 children)

There is no negotiating to be had on the issue. Remove the cuts to healthcare or fuck off.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago*

    It's actually worse. With the pocket recision that has already been used, the administration has literally demonstrated that they will rescind any deal they don't want to pay for. Frankly, the only way to negotiate in good faith would be some legal measure passed and tested by the courts (because the pocket recision used to be illegal until this SCOTUS ruled in favor of it, like just in time for this budget needing to be passed), guaranteeing that the administration will fund what Congress has appropriated funds for.

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  • [+] 34 points 1 year ago (14 children)
  • [–] 52 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    The last shutdown ended after 35 days when LaGuardia was shutdown due to protests ftom airport workers who weren't getting payed.

    My prediction is a similar thing will happen.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    That's a messaging shortcoming, not the public's fault. If I have short attention span it is mostly because shit is stacking faster than I can cope.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Every single newspaper acts like only the Democrats have any agency.

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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Yeah, I'm actually happy with the Dem response here, and I don't really compliment them often.

    I'm annoyed that the press, as always, is completely in Republicans' pockets. Notice how the whole article is practically waiting with bated breath for the Democrats to give in and open the government? They bury any talk of the ACA a few paragraphs in. The possibility that the Republicans could reopen the government by agreeing to extend healthcare subsidies is not really contemplated.

    I've seen many articles across different papers, and this is a theme. Their narrative is that the Dems have shut down the government. Republicans defunding healthcare is always a foregone conclusion, and the story is always about the competition, never about the substance of the fight.

    One reason people treat politics like a team sport is because that's how it's always covered.

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  • [–] 108 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Just three Democratic caucus members voted for the bill: John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Angus King, I-Maine.

    Hear that Nevada and Maine? You should probably deal with your traitors.

    Everybody already knew about Fetterman

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Listing Maine’s as independent makes it odd to list them as Democratic.

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  • [–] 209 points 1 year ago

    If we don't hold the line now, everything gets much worse.

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  • [–] 76 points 1 year ago

    Keep it shutdown and keep the core message that GOP can end this if they cared about health care for normal americans.

    Keep up the pressure and rally around the message.

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  • [–] 114 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Good. Hold the fucking line.

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  • [–] 68 points 1 year ago (23 children)

    I was just telling my best friend that I think this shutdown is going to go on for six to eight months. Possibly to the point where the pot boils over and the government gets thrown away because it was closed for so long.

    At least, one can dream that after months of bitter pain and suffering, we might possibly get people who care about others running a government. But that’s a whole hell of a serving of pain and suffering before we get there.

    Fuck it, let’s general strike this place. Medicare for all with the govt reopen and all those critical services back or nothing ever happens again.

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  • [+] 15 points 1 year ago (15 children)
  • [–] 42 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Governments are the product of the people. There is no divine or natural laws that triggers "an election". A government is simply created from thin air when a group of people (any group of people) get together and say: fuck the old system, we are putting that in the trash and signing a new social contract.

    Of course, there's virtually never unanimity of agreement over this social contract in one geographic area, so that social contract is only as binding as the force used to put it in effect.

    Realistically, 6 months+ of government shutdown in the US will likely cause a collapse of the USA as a single unified federal entity, since the federal government effectively rots. At that point, all bets are off. A fracture of the US is very possible.

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  • In parliamentary democracies the budget is automatically a vote of confidence. If the government can't pass it, an election occurs. Nothing shuts down because the system is still operating on the existing budget that was already passed.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Is that written into laws? No. But you know who made the original government? People who decided to make their own shit.

    We have more information and better access to new decisions. We can simply decide to start over collectively and start once again. We don’t have to do things because that’s the way they have always been (in our individual lifetime).

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Surely, my ideology will rise from the ashes!

    These are the vibes I'm getting

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    I will accept literally any other ideology before fascism. A monarch, a communist dictatorship, a tyranny of the majority, pre-fascist crony capitalism, futarchist prediction markets, primitivist tribes, machine rule, you name it. Go nuts. The bad ideas we haven't tried might not end up with secret police disappearing people.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Communist dictatorship is off the table, too. I mean, there is China's communism that probably isn't quiet as bad. Damn, we've seriously lost ground here. Anyways, markets, communism, etc, are all based on trading labor for resources. We're quickly approaching a world where robots are doing much of the labor. Humans who are not rich, selling sex, or some other service not acheivable with robotics are going to be very fucked.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    I feel like a dramatic dissolution should be a possibility considered, but I don't really expect us to come out of it with a new people-focused government. Likely if the budget never gets passed Trump decides he doesn't need Congress and just starts spending money as he wishes. He'll even start with funding something the people want, then once it's established that he can just spend money and no one will stop him, he'll move on to the instruments of oppression. When the military is directly being paid by the president, we'll see how much of their oath is really to the Constitution.

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  • [+] 10 points 1 year ago* (5 children)
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Who would throw it away? Most likely the states, possibly the military, and least likely but possible, a popular movement of the people.

    In the event of the collapse of the federal government the states still have their individual governments. It'd be painful everywhere and especially painful in most red states but we wouldn't necessarily have a total political collapse.

    I do agree that it's extremely unlikely to happen.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I guess you missed the whole last paragraph I mentioned where we can do a general strike and start helping ourselves. But sure, whatever you say bub.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    But your entire last paragraph, on the practicality and realism spectrum, ranks just a bit lower than "worthless, idle wishful thinking".

    It's no more or less serious than if you'd said we should all just join together in song and force aliens to show up to fix all our problems.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Fetterman is a Democrat just like manchin is a Democrat, so basicly not a democrat.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Manchin was a democrat from a very right wing state. He never hid his views and that he was going to be very right wing democrat.

    Fetterman said he was a progressive, ran as a progressive, and went hard right wing when he got in office. Yeah the brain damage changed him but I think he was always a Republican in Democrat clothes.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

    Goddamnit Fetterman be an actual democrat again for 5 minutes.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    Why hasn't he been kicked out yet?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    What's the process for removing a sitting Senator?

    He hasn't been kicked out because he won the election, that's how that works.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    The Senate can vote to remove a member with a two thirds vote. The last time it happened was 1862.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Need the ability for recall elections IMO

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I mean…we have an impeached, pedophile, multiple convicted felon as president. The wheels for moving someone unfit out of office have been painted over with gold glue made in china, for make America great

    Kinda think we’re past ballot and closing in on ammo box

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  • [+] 25 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Hope they downgrade the US’s credit reputation yet again.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Last time they did that, sales of Treasuries actually went up. Quixotically, the downgrade hurt the stock market. People divested of equities. And then they needed to move the money to a safe place. So.... uh.... Treasuries.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I read his comments on the vote there, and I just don't agree with him. Somehow if the government isn't shutdown the Democrats will grow a spine? Idk, it just seems like his reasoning being they can cause chaos,..'gestures broadly'... Seems like we already have chaos

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago*

    Honestly, so did I. Good for them.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    PA has some of poorest, worst quality of life conditions I have seen in this country. They really need to boot Fetterman. Jesus, wtf?

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    ....what? Are you sure you've been to Pennsylvania?

    Fetterman can get fucked though, I'm with you there

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yeah, generalizations aren’t great. I’ve seen beautiful parts too. I have driven through and have family from small towns out in the country

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago*

    I live in PA. But I've generally stayed on the east/west borders (meaning near Philadelphia and Pittsburgh). There are a lot of other areas (I've driven through, or around), and they may fit what you are saying more than people realize.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    I’m gonna have to vote for Fetterman in three years, aren’t I.

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  • [–] 57 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    That depends on whether someone in PA can assemble the resources needed to primary him.

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  • [–] 50 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    I honestly dont expect him to run for reelection. The guy seems to absolutely hate being a senator after having a stroke. He definitely despises being in the public eye or the center of attention to some degree. He also seems to not really have much awareness of things going on around him in general anymore. He really should not be in such a stressful position in his current state of health, and I doubt he wants to be. Pride is probably the sole thing keeping him from stepping down. It definitely isnt his love for being in the role, that is for sure

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago*

    He's a shitty town mayor. He got some TV time back then for his 'crazy antics'. You might be right the national spotlight is hopefully too much for him.

    But you also don't need to work a real job while you're elected. That could be a bigger draw.

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  • [–] 49 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Oct 16 - Daily Beast

    Top-ranking Democratic Party officials in Pennsylvania are gearing up to run against Sen. John Fetterman in a 2028 primary contest, according to a report.

    Big names in the state who could well run against the increasingly embattled incumbent include House Representatives Brendan Boyle and Chris Deluzio, along with former Congressman Conor Lamb, Axios reports, citing multiple inside sources.

    Axios added it was not clear whether Fetterman, who is understood to have ambitions of running for the White House, plans to run again for the Senate or the presidency in 2028.

    Fetterman texted Axios saying, “enjoy your clickbait!” and requested “please do not contact” in response to follow-up questions. He also shared an article citing him as one of “the least Trump-aligned Democratic lawmakers in the state.”

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, I got Brian Fitzpatrick as my rep, the "#1 Most Bipartisan Member of Congress" for however many years now. Still votes with Trump 51% of the time, and it's only on money things he'll break with Republicans on, very rarely ever is it a moral thing.

    Meanwhile Fetterman is polling better with Republicans (around 60% favorable) compared to with the Dems (around 50% favorable).

    Want to come up with a compromise on farm aid or disaster recovery? Go right ahead. Compromising on genocide and using the military on US soil? You better not reach across the aisle on that if you want my support. Fetterman deserves to be judged by the company he keeps.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I still can’t tell how much of this is sarcasm. I literally chortled out loud about half way through reading the quote, I think around where it said run for White House. Then the rest I didn’t know if I was supposed to be taking seriously.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Lol who knows? I mean, I'm sure he's still better than we would have got with Oz, but that presidential run thing made me laugh too. You already lost half the people that voted for you, and as we've seen playing across the aisle isn't getting anyone anywhere.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    well yeah. they know once we hit november first its going to be more obvious to more folks what their bend over bill really does.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago
    [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I'm sorry, but the rules for how your government works are so confusing.

    And requiring budget bills to pass every year or you entire government shuts down is a bug most other democracies patched out last century. (You just make everything roll over by default if you can't pass a budget). The US Government seems to be constantly in shut down. It's kinda dumb folks, it doesn't need to be this way.

    I could have sworn I heard that the 100 person US senate only needs 51 members to pass a bill, but I vaguely heard they don't want to do that because it overrides the option to filibuster?

    What???

    Very lost over here

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    One thing Schumer's good at is doing nohting.

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