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Old 23rd August 2017, 09:51 AM   #1
Travis
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threat of shutdown over the wall

Okay, so we have threats that there will be a government shutdown if The Wall® is not built. The last few times there was a government shutdown it did not turn out well for Republicans.

If they do go down this road what will the implications be? Will the base stand by? Will it finally be too much for moderate Republicans?
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Old 23rd August 2017, 10:30 AM   #2
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Originally Posted by Travis View Post
Okay, so we have threats that there will be a government shutdown if The Wall® is not built. The last few times there was a government shutdown it did not turn out well for Republicans.
No ?

They have the Presidency, Senate, House and SCOTUS - doesn't look too bad from here.

Originally Posted by Travis View Post
If they do go down this road what will the implications be?
Nothing, they will blame the Democrats for obstructionism and enough of the great American electorate will believe them that they will get away with it.

Originally Posted by Travis View Post
Will the base stand by?
HELLS YES !!!!!

Indeed it will build support among the base seeing him tackling The Swamp head on like this.

Originally Posted by Travis View Post
Will it finally be too much for moderate Republicans?
Of course not. They will either be spineless wienies who will just accept whatever The President does or rationalise it that Hillary would have done far, far worse.

Even if government is completely shut down, it will be a "victory" for lower government spending

At this stage I cannot think of a set of circumstances that would have so called "moderate Republicans" (IMO now an oxymoron, even Democrats are right wing by UK standards so Republicans are far-right or completely hatstand) do anything other than slavishly vote for GOP legislation despite their "brave" words
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Old 23rd August 2017, 12:01 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by The Don View Post
Originally Posted by Travis View Post
Okay, so we have threats that there will be a government shutdown if The Wall® is not built. The last few times there was a government shutdown it did not turn out well for Republicans.
No ?

They have the Presidency, Senate, House and SCOTUS - doesn't look too bad from here.
Although the repercussions did not last long, after the last two shutdowns the Republicans did sink in the opinion polls for a while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...%931996#Result
Quote:
A 1995 ABC news poll had Republicans receiving the brunt of the blame with 46% of respondents compared to the 27% that blamed Clinton.[15] Clinton's Gallup approval rating stood at 51% in the early days of the December shutdown, but fell significantly to 42% as it progressed into January.[16] Once the shutdown had ended, however, his Gallup approval ratings rose to their highest since his election.
...
The shutdown was cited as having a role in Clinton's successful 1996 re-election by Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...down_had_begun
Quote:
A Gallup poll conducted during the first week of the shutdown found that the percentage of Americans with a favorable opinion of the Republican Party had fallen to the lowest level for either party since Gallup began measuring party favorability in 1992, with only 28% of Americans saying they now had a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, down 10 points from September, before the shutdown. The Democratic Party had a 43% favorable rating, down 4 points from the previous month. President Obama's job approval was at 44%, about the same as when the shutdown began.

My feeling is that we are too far away from the mid-term elections for a shutdown to have a meaningful impact on the Republicans.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 12:45 PM   #4
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I do think that Trump is getting on their nerves, though. And if the Republicans in Congress don't want to do a shutdown and don't really care about the wall (which I think is the case) and Trump pushes it he's going to push it in a way that pisses them off. I'm not saying they'll revolt or anything, but it will be one more thing that makes them wish he wasn't around.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 01:18 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by SOdhner View Post
I do think that Trump is getting on their nerves, though. And if the Republicans in Congress don't want to do a shutdown and don't really care about the wall (which I think is the case) and Trump pushes it he's going to push it in a way that pisses them off. I'm not saying they'll revolt or anything, but it will be one more thing that makes them wish he wasn't around.
I think the challenge is that there is a significant caucus within Congress that considers a government shutdown a victory in and of itself.

Previous shutdowns didn't include 'vital services' - very aligned with Libertarian values. Shut down the parks, shut down welfare, shut down arts programs, shut down the EPA and science grants. Keep the army and police running. There's probably dozens of Representatives who would consider this Mission Accomplished that they can take to the electorate to defend their Districts.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 01:38 PM   #6
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You know people really need to stop worrying about the Republican base, they're a lost cause. The focus should be on the people who maybe didn't vote because they didn't think much of Hilary and hey everyone said Trump was going to lose, they're the ones that need to be reached if there's a shutdown.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 01:44 PM   #7
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Originally Posted by SOdhner View Post
I'm not saying they'll revolt or anything, but it will be one more thing that makes them wish he wasn't around.
I don't think they'll revolt either. The best we could expect would be silence and inaction.

Originally Posted by blutoski View Post
I think the challenge is that there is a significant caucus within Congress that considers a government shutdown a victory in and of itself.
I agree

I think a good many Republicans these days think that these sorts of shutdowns should be permanent. They believe that services that are not done during the shutdowns should not be done by the government anyway; the employees who are laid off should also not work for the government.

I don't know how much they care about election consequences. The Supreme Court has ruled against some of the gerrymandering, but did not require much of any speed to revise them - the gerrrymandered boundaries will still be in place for the next election. Increased voter registration restrictions will be in place for the next election. Republicans may be useless at governing, but they are much better than Democrats when it comes to winning elections.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 03:18 PM   #8
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There's little point in the Wall now that the Night King has a pet dragon.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 03:29 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by crescent View Post
I don't know how much they care about election consequences. The Supreme Court has ruled against some of the gerrymandering, but did not require much of any speed to revise them - the gerrrymandered boundaries will still be in place for the next election. Increased voter registration restrictions will be in place for the next election. Republicans may be useless at governing, but they are much better than Democrats when it comes to winning elections.
In this case they're not concerned about losing their seats to Democrats, but rather, to moderate Republicans, by losing primaries after a failure to make progress on their commitments.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 10:52 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by blutoski View Post
In this case they're not concerned about losing their seats to Democrats, but rather, to moderate Republicans, by losing primaries after a failure to make progress on their commitments.
Given current support levels for Trump within the GOP, moderate Republicans (if not an oxymoron) are more likely to lose in a primary to Tea Party or Trumpista candidates than vice versa IMO.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 11:04 PM   #11
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Trump's out of tax money to fill his resort coffers and protect his kids on their ski trips. He's bluffing about a budget veto.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 11:06 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by The Don View Post
Given current support levels for Trump within the GOP, moderate Republicans (if not an oxymoron) are more likely to lose in a primary to Tea Party or Trumpista candidates than vice versa IMO.
Your posts are so naively pessimistic.

Time to move on, he tricked enough people to win the election, barely. He's lost that advantage. Only a minority of racists are still in his court.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 11:30 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post
Your posts are so naively pessimistic.

Time to move on, he tricked enough people to win the election, barely. He's lost that advantage. Only a minority of racists are still in his court.
I'm not sure that you're right that only a minority of racists are still in his court.

Latest Gallup figures are that 79% of Republicans still support him.

The Christian fundamentalists are still firmly behind him because of his newly-found anti-abortion stance, his recent attack on transgender individuals in the military and, most of all, his appointment of a conservative SCOTUS member to replace Scalia. If one or more other spots open up on the Supreme Court then he can lock down that support.

His own hard-core "Trumpistas" are still behind him 100% and will likely stay that way forever. I've seen various figures but 20-25% of the US population, so close to 50% of the GOP, fall into that category. IMO the majority of racists, white supremacists and Nazis fall into this category.

The Tea Party is also behind him because of the chaotic way he is trying to run the government plays into their "government does not work" narrative.

These three groups, although they have some overlap, account for the majority of Republicans. OTOH "moderate Republicans" are a small and shrinking rump. Those that haven't either capitulated to one of the Republicans groups listed above or have left the party in disgust are fighting a rearguard action. If you're expecting that there is a large number (perhaps a majority) of "moderate Republicans" quietly waiting in the wings to take their party back - I think you're very much mistaken.


edited to add.....

I can see that there may be some change in these numbers if the Democratic Party had won one or more of the special elections. I know they narrowed the margins in some staunchly GOP constituencies but they still didn't actually win any of the elections.

Last edited by The Don; 23rd August 2017 at 11:32 PM.
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Old 24th August 2017, 12:25 AM   #14
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Originally Posted by Garrison View Post
You know people really need to stop worrying about the Republican base, they're a lost cause. The focus should be on the people who maybe didn't vote because they didn't think much of Hilary and hey everyone said Trump was going to lose, they're the ones that need to be reached if there's a shutdown.
They're the ones that need to be reached in any event, but the shutdown could help get them on board.

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Old 24th August 2017, 12:34 AM   #15
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Originally Posted by The Don View Post
I can see that there may be some change in these numbers if the Democratic Party had won one or more of the special elections. I know they narrowed the margins in some staunchly GOP constituencies but they still didn't actually win any of the elections.
That's a bit of an understatement.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...st-everywhere/

Only one swing could count as making a differene (NH House District Carroll 6), but swings of up to 30 and more percentage points is not so much narrowing the margins as is redrawing the electoral map.

Republicans have relied on gerrymandering for years. With Trump this could backfire - as a result of Republican gerrymandering many Democrat seats are as safe as safe can be (Louisiana Senate District 2), but many Republican seats are just winnable. A ten point swing towards Democrats - average is over 14 percentage points - makes them gerrymandered Democrat.

Unless things change, the 2018 and 2020 elections could look a bit like the 1984 election, but in reverse.

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Old 24th August 2017, 04:16 AM   #16
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I would say that adding a shutdown to the growing list of incompetencies definitely could sway quite a few minds in the next election.
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Old 24th August 2017, 04:28 AM   #17
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No wall. No shutdown. Just your president pissing in the wind. Again.
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Old 24th August 2017, 05:07 AM   #18
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What? The PDJT wants to close down national parks and monuments and not allow US citizens access to "our culture"? Sad.
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Old 24th August 2017, 05:19 AM   #19
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Originally Posted by Travis View Post
I would say that adding a shutdown to the growing list of incompetencies definitely could sway quite a few minds in the next election.
When did you become such a wide-eyed optimist?
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Old 24th August 2017, 05:34 AM   #20
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I expect Trump is stupid enough to get into a pissing match with his own party leading to the shutdown of the government.

I also expect the Democrats are incompetent enough to squander the opportunity to make any gains.
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Old 24th August 2017, 05:45 AM   #21
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Don't worry. I have every confidence the Mexicans will come through with the money for the wall at the eleventh hour.
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Old 24th August 2017, 06:08 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by Senex View Post
Don't worry. I have every confidence the Mexicans will come through with the money for the wall at the eleventh hour.
At the rate we're going they may want to build a wall themselves to stop Americans from crossing over.
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Old 24th August 2017, 07:17 AM   #23
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Originally Posted by blutoski View Post
In this case they're not concerned about losing their seats to Democrats, but rather, to moderate Republicans, by losing primaries after a failure to make progress on their commitments.
The primaries rarely reward moderates. At any rate, the Republicans are moving more and more towards closed primaries or caucuses, which are even less likely to support moderates.

That is to say, I have never heard of a right-wing Republican getting "caucused" by a moderate, but there are plenty of examples of moderates who got caucused by, and replaced by much more conservative Republicans.

The Republicans who are motivated enough to take part in caucuses, who are registered to vote in closed primaries are still very strongly supportive of Trump, at most they might be upset that he has not yet jailed Hillary Clinton.

And they can be that way, because they are really good at winning elections.
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Old 24th August 2017, 07:22 AM   #24
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Originally Posted by Spindrift View Post
At the rate we're going they may want to build a wall themselves to stop Americans from crossing over.
Not likely, but the Canadians might well be thinking about it!!!!!!!
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Old 24th August 2017, 07:33 AM   #25
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He has failed to force Mexico to pay for the wall. His fallback position is to force US taxpayers to pay for it.

Or else.

He wants that goddamn wall. Even if it means default, insolvency, and another worldwide economic crisis. Even if the Social Security checks become worthless IOU's. Yes, even if he has to starve Granny, he wants that goddamn wall.

Plus, he senses the weakness of both the congressional politikers and the compromised US electorate who put them in congress. He's willing to gamble they won't be able to override his veto, or impeach him, or anything. Trump believes he can run this bozo bus off the road.
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Old 24th August 2017, 07:56 AM   #26
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Yes, I don't understand why he needs to shutdown the government over the wall if the Mexicans were going to pay for it.

Congress should just say, we will fund it when you get the money from Mexico.
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Old 24th August 2017, 08:25 AM   #27
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I think the best outcome would be for him to go on stage and tell everybody that he himself already built the wall, with his own bare hands, that Mexico paid for every penny of it and that the immigration rate, the crime rate and the unemployment rate has gone down to zero ever since.

And that the lying media is failing to report on any of that or, even worse, lying by claiming otherwise.

That way his core supporters would be very happy and very much in support of him, he would be in the news for that and therefore not for the Russia investigation for at least three days, and everybody else would be happy that there is no wall (in factland, which his supporters wouldn't care about at all).
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Old 24th August 2017, 08:37 AM   #28
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Originally Posted by Toontown View Post
He wants that goddamn wall. Even if it means default, insolvency, and another worldwide economic crisis. Even if the Social Security checks become worthless IOU's. Yes, even if he has to starve Granny, he wants that goddamn wall.

Plus, he senses the weakness of both the congressional politikers and the compromised US electorate who put them in congress. He's willing to gamble they won't be able to override his veto, or impeach him, or anything. Trump believes he can run this bozo bus off the road.


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Old 24th August 2017, 08:56 AM   #29
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Originally Posted by fuelair View Post
Not likely, but the Canadians might well be thinking about it!!!!!!!
You are right. And we will make the US pay for it!
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Old 24th August 2017, 08:04 PM   #30
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I suspect Trump is becoming an irrelevancy to government. A noisy, undisciplined, insanity-ridden irrelevancy, but pointless nonetheless.
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Old 24th August 2017, 08:41 PM   #31
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Originally Posted by Norman Alexander View Post
I suspect Trump is becoming an irrelevancy to government. A noisy, undisciplined, insanity-ridden irrelevancy, but pointless nonetheless.
I keep trying to tell people the presidency is not actually the throne of a god-king. Maybe you'll have better luck.
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Old 24th August 2017, 10:38 PM   #32
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Originally Posted by theprestige View Post
I keep trying to tell people the presidency is not actually the throne of a god-king. Maybe you'll have better luck.
As can be seen by lists of indictments that FOLLOW various tenures in the White House. But that's so often after-the-fact, isn't it?

The fact is that the theoretical checks and balances have been eroded, bit by bit, since George Washington took his seat after taking the oath. I haven't delved much further back, but at least from Hoover to present, you can find one or another opinion piece referring to the current regime as "The Imperial Presidency of ____________". Fill in Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon (skip Ford and skip Carter), Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and naturally - Obama.

The fact is that the President, through EOs can essentially govern by fiat. Oh, he'll have to get to the vault (Congress) sooner or later but there are so many things that a POTUS can get done by EO, that it boggles the mind what some of the founding fathers would think (well, other than Hamilton - he'd love it).
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