- The 8 Democrats’ caving is pretty demoralizing. Polls were consistently showing the public was blaming Republicans and Trump specifically for the shutdown, and Trump’s approval ratings are currently in freefall. He just got booed massively at a football game, while Democrats just won one of the most epic victories in an off-off-year elections ever. So why would these Democrats bail him out?
- Republicans have full control of the government, it’s their own mess! Meanwhile, Trump has been hosting lavish Gatsby style parties at Mar-a-Lago every weekend, offering Democrats a smorgasbord of let-them-eat-cake style campaign ad footage! Democrats just never miss an opportunity to snatch defeat from the jaws of public opinion victory.
- I will agree that Democrats are mature and responsible to want to avoid the serious harm about to befall American families and the economy with millions of people losing their food stamps, government workers not being paid, and proverbial shit hitting the fan at airports nationwide, but it’s never been more obvious that Democrats need to stop giving in to Republican political terrorism. The GOP is always willing to shoot the hostage, so Democrats routinely giving in is why Republicans keep taking the country hostage! Trump certainly doesn’t care about the collateral damage he causes — he did virtually nothing to try and make a deal to open his OWN government!
- The GOP pioneered and perfected the minority party art of filibustering budget votes until they get some concessions, so it’s rich for Republicans to blame Democrats for finally doing the same thing.
- Democrats have been campaigning for 10 years against Trump calling him, accurately, a sociopathic lunatic who will bring serious chaos and destruction to America because he only cares about himself, and then, every time there’s about to be serious chaos and destruction, Democrats take the high road and bail Trump out, often in such a way that they get blamed by moderate and independent voters. Trump Administration officials are literally laughing at Democrats for caving when they were the ones getting most of the public pressure and outrage.
- It’s bad politics for Democrats to keep saving Republican voters from feeling the burn of the hot stove. Federal food stamps disproportionately go to Republican voters because blue states do a whole lot much more at the state level to help their residents than red states, so maybe Democrats should let those disproportionately Republican welfare recipients finally understand they’re screwing themselves by voting in cynical Republican saboteurs who work tirelessly to make the government stop doing things that directly help them.
- The Trump Administration has literally been arguing in the courts for the authority to let millions of Americans starve despite repeated demands from judges to use the funds already available to keep the food stamps going, and Trump has been threatening legal action against states that were picking up the slack on their own. Maybe if Democrats let conservative voters go hungry, those voters will start voting for Democrats who don’t actively try to impoverish them with every budget, or at least they might stay home on election day and help Democrats win that way.
- I wish Democrats would shrug their shoulders and proclaim “states’ rights,” and let conservative voters get fucked over by the cynical, heartless senators and reps they keep electing. I wish the Dems would stop taking the higher road every governmental crisis and insulating conservatives from the consequences of their votes.
- The ball is now in the House’s court, and I’m not sure Mike Johnson is going to go along with this Senate deal. He doesn’t seem to care much about the Obamacare subsidies vote John Thune agreed to give the Democrats.
- Will Johnson finally seat Adelita Grijalva now, or wait until that special House election in Tennessee that will likely seat one more Republican representative and necessitate the House scrounging for one more vote among the GOP caucus for the discharge petition? The TN election is not until December 2nd, almost a full month away, but so far it has seemed as if there’s no priority bigger for the Speaker than obstructing justice to protect all of Trump and Epstein’s fellow rapist pedophile buddies.
- That’s the silver lining of this shutdown deal: the Epstein Files might finally be released! Who knows what cascade of societal effects will follow a bunch of rich, high-profile people being outed at long last for their participation in the most infamous sex trafficking ring in US history, but maybe it will even lead to an utter collapse in Trump’s approval and maybe even his resignation. Hallelujah!
- Just kidding… there are rumors going around that Nancy Mace will sell her vote for the discharge petition for something from Trump. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. She’s probably the craziest Republican Congress, which has a lot of tough competition.
- Regardless of the Democratic surrender, however, I am very much looking forward to a 2026 full of vigorous Democratic midterm primaries in which many, many incumbent Democratic senators and representatives lose their seats to younger, higher energy Democrats willing to meet the fascist moment and boldly fight back against Trump’s smashing of our norms and dismantling of our democracy.
- On a happy note, Kim Davis lost her dumb appeal trying to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision recognizing the Constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Now that bigot, who respects the sacred institution of marriage so much she has been married four times herself, has to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees. I’m sure she’ll grift her way to becoming a D-list culture war celebrity to pay it off, and maybe even find a new man along the way to have her 5th marriage, but good riddance to her finally being thrown out of the judiciary! She’s the perfect example of an infringement on the separation of church and state. If she’s against homosexuality, it’s her right to not personally marry a lesbian, but she has no right to tell the government to force other women not to be able to do that. 🥃 🥃
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