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PaperclipPerfector  17hr ago (text post)   2142 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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Senate ends shutdown.

With no provision to extend COVID-era ACA subsidies, merely a vote, it has the appearance and character of a Democrat loss. The usual suspects on Reddit are crying foul of cowardice.

But could it have ended any other way? The Democrats are obliged to government unions, who weren't being paid: and to the urban poor, who weren't getting SNAP. Two massive interests within their base were being sacrificed for the benefit of... four million recipients? The math never added up.

You could say that the Republicans were heartless, but they have come out of it looking like fighters and winners, while the Democrats have capitulated to 'fascists'. The midterms will still probably be a Dem victory, but this act by Schumer and the moderates will not be something the #resistance will be likely to forget anytime soon.

I'm mostly experience whiplash from the DNC messaging. I wonder at the hypothetical bugman who just uncritically believes all of it. Because in the span of hours, we went from "This is a Republican shutdown" to "Who are the traitorous Democrats who caved and allowed the government to open again?"

Ah well. No helping it.

There is no contradiction between those two. Republicans could have, at any time, used their Senate majority to end the shutdown by over-ruling the parliamentarian and invoking cloture with less than 60 votes. What actually happened is that eight Democrats voted for cloture so that Republicans didn't have to do that.

That's fascinating. So your contention is that Democrats are mad that Republicans didn't end the filibuster?

Huh? Democrats (assuming this means voters) are mad that eight Senators voted to end the government shutdown with what seem like no material concessions.

with what seem like no material concessions

That's WhiningCoil's original point; how can you claim that it's the other side shutting down the government, while also asking concessions to allow it to open?

I'm not saying the Republicans necessarily had more consistent messaging, but come on, it's clearly double-speak.

While there exists at least one non-Republican senator who is not willing to blindly vote for any Republican proposal, a shutdown is obviously never 100% the Republicans fault in a very technical sense.

Still, the general rule in parliaments is that if you need someone's votes, you have to make them some concessions in exchange.

One might as well claim that on a technical level, both a rapist and (sober, adult) rape victim could stop a rape from happening by either stopping the act or just giving consent (at which point it would no longer be rape).

However, I am about as inclined to buy "it is the evil Democrats fault because they wanted some material concessions for their vote" as I am to buy "she is to blame because she did not give me consent", because the social expectation is neither that you vote for your opponent's budget out of the goodness of your heart nor that you must consent to any sex act others might afflict on you.

What concessions did Republicans get for their votes for the Continuing Resolutions during the Biden years?

I mean, what does it mean to be responsible for shutting down the government? There was a procedural path for Democrats to end the shutdown (by voting with Republicans). There was a procedural path for Republicans to end the shutdown (without any Democrat votes). There is no path for Democrats to unilaterally end the shutdown (being the minority party). What is the sense in which Democrats are responsible that does not also apply to Republicans?

What is the sense in which Democrats are responsible that does not also apply to Republicans?

This is about the messaging around who's responsible, not about who's actually responsible. Which would be Congress in general or, upstream of that, american voters who failed to elect a filibuster proof majority. But that's not going to make the party who says it very popular.

But the messaging "they're the one doing it" followed by (essentially) "why did we allow it to reopen without getting anything?" makes obvious that the narrative is bullshit.

I guess I do not think (and do not think voters think) assignment of blame like "Republicans are responsible for the shutdown" entails "there is literally nothing Democrats could do to end the shutdown." By this logic no party could ever be responsible for the shutdown, since after all some of its members could vote for a bill to end the shutdown!

So what your saying is, making Trump our king to keep the government from shutting down again is just as viable a political strategy as demanding infinity dollars for special interest groups?

I exaggerate, but that's the directionality here. Republicans could have ended the shutdown by fundamentally changing how the senate conducts business. Trump even wanted them to, because then they could ram through whatever he wanted. I'm all for it! I just never thought I'd hear those same words out of someone arguing the Democrat's case about why Republicans should own the shutdown.

Glad to hear we're united in our aspirations for Trump's agenda to be completely unimpeded. Too bad Republicans didn't own the shutdown like you say they should have and done it.

This is a very strange response. I think, and have long thought, ending the filibuster would be a good thing. I think it is singularly responsible for the erosion of Congress's role in our politics and has been a boon to the growth of presidential power. Even if the Senate did abolish the filibuster that would not come close to making Trump a king. The filibuster was not a significant impediment to Congress for the first 200+ years of our nations history. It's only in the last ~20 or so that it's seriously become a problem.

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