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.
Sadly, most Americans have very short attention spans and will soon forget what the shutdown was about and will be more concerned with a short term crisis than long term health care worries. My worry is the Republicans know this, after all they manufactured this nation’s eroded attention span and used it to gain power already.
Every single newspaper acts like only the Democrats have any agency.
We don’t have another opposition group in politics who have any power or political capital at all, so we’re pressing on them to do their job for once. They are doing the right thing by holding out so the GOP doesn’t gut social services, I wish they could have held out stronger in many other standoffs. People like Schumer have let us down over and over by making concessions and ignoring what people want.
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.
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.
They are about to miss a full paycheck this weekend, and it’s the end of the month, bills are about due. Things are about to start hurting.
If only we had an extra 40 billion…
Man. It would royally suck if some government flights stayed grounded because air traffic control refused to work. 😐
Maybe they can hold out until Thanksgiving
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.
That was part of the plan, too. I think they put it in Project 2025.
While being manipulated is not your fault as a member of the public, it is certainly the public’s fault for not being informed or taking the time to learn about and understand politics and allowing the kind of “why you gotta make everything political” anti-engagement sentiment to influence you.
Somewhere along the way we started allowing someone’s poor understanding of how the world works and how the country operates to be a respectable and protected identity, rather than a sign of massive failure from top to bottom of the system.
Nah. That type of voter is also the type to just blame everything on the party in power.
You are describing the overwhelming majority of American voters.