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Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 26, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is there anything to this: "The Coup We've Feared Has Already Happened"?

The coup we’ve been fearing has already happened. Utterly servile to Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to convene the House of Representatives for even pro forma business (and by extension Congress) indefinitely, thereby shielding Trump from all manner of inquiry and accountability, not least the Epstein files, and giving him de facto full dictatorial powers. The longer the shutdown continues, the more irrelevant Congress becomes. Next expect unilateral executive decrees on assuming full funding authority, essentially rendering Congress defunct. It may never reconvene. Suspension of the Constitution cannot be far behind. Dictatorship came to us while we slept.

Is this what it seems like to me — just more lefty pearl-clutching and crying wolf — or is there something to the arguments James Bruno and Tonoccus McClain are making?

I don't feel like reading that substack, because it seems pretty crazy. Square that framing with CNN's framing this morning. Democrats are committed they are in lock-step they are staring Trump down to get what they want. Which is credit for standing up to Trump.

Democrats are maintaining fierce unity publicly and privately, with lawmakers and senior aides telling CNN that they are prepared to stick with the party’s strategy for the near future.

I trust the more official mouthpiece of the party than the anxious doomsaying of a substacker. If this is the dissolution of Congress, then it is an abdication not an outright power grab. But, maybe your writers address that.