USA Politics

As I doubt he's got the wits to come up with that by himself, he's obviously retweeting memes. So that's what the POTUS is now doing when he's sulking over the Congress not being willing to pass a budget paying for a border wall he promised Mexico would pay for.

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Call me nuts, but I'm starting to think that Trump is actually a diabolical genius who has everything according to plan and the Democrats are playing exactly the game he wants them to.
 
He's SO smart, the smartest, ask anybody, everybody knows it, tremendous, tremendous smart guy! Walking out of a meeting with nothing to offer when the Dems have all the leverage? GENIUS!
 
That's true when it comes to the defense budget, for everything else they claim to have no money for it e.g. education, infrastructure, disaster relief, ect.
 
Walking out of a meeting with nothing to offer when the Dems have all the leverage? GENIUS!

See, that's what I meant with the Democrats are playing his game. Trump is not personally interested in whether or not a wall is built. He made this promise, and the Democrats are preventing him from doing so. Politically, that is the best thing that could possibly happen to him. He won't have to build a wall, and he won't have to prove that it's not useless. He can say the Democrats are unwilling to negotiate with him, which is even true. People will get used to the shutdown as a new normal situation quite easily. I bet a lot are happy that the IRS won't be working. And all the (mostly poor) people who will suffer from the shutdown? Trump can easily blame the Democrats for that. A lot of people will be put off by the Democrats through Trump's scapegoating, and Trump will win in a landslide in 2020. And all this is not even taking into account that Trump has made uncanny references to national emergency lately.
 
That's true when it comes to the defense budget, for everything else they claim to have no money for it e.g. education, infrastructure, disaster relief, ect.

When your construction lobby is way weaker than those getting the cash (military-industrial, pharma, finance, etc.). Here in Croatia we recently had issues with construction lobby (recently as in world crisis effect) of the same nature USA has with military lobby. Too much stuff developed and built so someone could get that nice percentage off contracts.
 
See, that's what I meant with the Democrats are playing his game. Trump is not personally interested in whether or not a wall is built. He made this promise, and the Democrats are preventing him from doing so. Politically, that is the best thing that could possibly happen to him. He won't have to build a wall, and he won't have to prove that it's not useless. He can say the Democrats are unwilling to negotiate with him, which is even true. People will get used to the shutdown as a new normal situation quite easily. I bet a lot are happy that the IRS won't be working. And all the (mostly poor) people who will suffer from the shutdown? Trump can easily blame the Democrats for that. A lot of people will be put off by the Democrats through Trump's scapegoating, and Trump will win in a landslide in 2020. And all this is not even taking into account that Trump has made uncanny references to national emergency lately.

I doubt he'll win, if he does it won't be by a landslide. The only people he's apeacing right now are his base. Historically political bases hover at 20-25%. That's not enough to win an election. Legislators along the border do not support the wall. Most Americans don't support the wall. Never mind the cost of it. It sucks that they need to build a wall that will take longer to build than he will be in office only to prove it was a waste of 5 billion dollars.

The longer the government shut down continues the more people beyond federal workers will be affected. TSA is already slacking, the FDA announced it will stop inspecting food, Whether the IRS will give out refunds is still up in the air, etc. We're talking Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, the VA, etc. He's fucking with the whole country and you think he'll win in a landslide? doubtful.
 
He can say the Democrats are unwilling to negotiate with him, which is even true.
Except he keeps meeting with them and refusing to negotiate. Even Fox is blasting him for it.

I bet a lot are happy that the IRS won't be working. And all the (mostly poor) people who will suffer from the shutdown? Trump can easily blame the Democrats for that. A lot of people will be put off by the Democrats through Trump's scapegoating, and Trump will win in a landslide in 2020.
That's his base, though. Trump's base isn't big enough to win an election.
 
I think Trump will get re-elected in 2020, but as a consequence of the Democrats not finding a credible challenger. He'll get a smaller share of the popular vote but win the electoral college again.
 
See, that's what I meant with the Democrats are playing his game. Trump is not personally interested in whether or not a wall is built. He made this promise, and the Democrats are preventing him from doing so. Politically, that is the best thing that could possibly happen to him. He won't have to build a wall, and he won't have to prove that it's not useless. He can say the Democrats are unwilling to negotiate with him, which is even true. People will get used to the shutdown as a new normal situation quite easily. I bet a lot are happy that the IRS won't be working. And all the (mostly poor) people who will suffer from the shutdown? Trump can easily blame the Democrats for that. A lot of people will be put off by the Democrats through Trump's scapegoating, and Trump will win in a landslide in 2020. And all this is not even taking into account that Trump has made uncanny references to national emergency lately.
I'm having a hard time with this line of thinking. What are Democrats supposed to do? Give him the 5 billion? A bipartisan budget was already approved by both chambers before Trump walked back on it after being blasted by right wing media. He then went on TV and said he would own the shutdown. Democrats are negotiating, but there's no reason to offer Trump anything at this point. The wall isn't popular. Once airports start to shut down due to a lack of TSA agents, there is going to be a ton of pressure on Trump to cave. If Democrats give into Trump, Pelosi will lose all credibility with the left. They can't afford to give him what he wants especially now when he is on the defensive.

I'm still not sure that declaring a state of emergency is a bluff or not. Trump has backed himself into a corner though and is going to have to do it. I don't see Democrats caving on this one and they shouldn't. I'm not really sure what happens next. The wall debate is really more of a messaging war than anything else. It won't actually be built no matter what happens. It will spend years working its way through the courts before being canceled by the next Democratic president, whether it is built through executive action or approved by congress. Democrats know this, Republicans know this, even Trump knows this. Democrats are trying to frame this as a matter of keeping the government open vs wasting billions on a wall that nobody outside of Trump's base really wants. So far, opinion polls show that this is working so far.

As for electoral consequences, there won't be any for anybody. The election is a little less than two years away. Assuming this shutdown doesn't extend into the summer or later (it won't), it won't be on anybody's mind come election day. The election map is also not really set up in a way that would allow anyone to have a landslide. That being said, the border wall was his marquee campaign promise and he has to deliver on that if he wants to win. The blowback he got for indicating he'd sign the budget back in December is proof that his supporters will turn on him over this. Even the more traditional conservatives who currently support him but do not like the wall would see Trump backing down as a sign that the dealmaking abilities he sold himself on during the campaign.

To that end, I think there's a bit of hyperbole around Trump, particularly outside the US. Trump won by a razor-thin margin and has shown very few signs of growing any coalition for re-election. He might go into 2020 with a more unified GOP, but his path to victory is going to be very similar to 2016. It's really not looking good for him. He can definitely win again, but it is far from a foregone conclusion and it will be another very narrow victory. He is not popular here and while he has major media voices firmly on his side, they will just as quickly drop him when it is convenient to do so.


One aspect of this that isn't being discussed as much is the squandering of a perfect opportunity to strip some power away from the executive. Conservatives complained throughout the Obama presidency that the president has too much power, particularly when it comes to immigration. This is actually something I agree with conservatives on. By passing a veto-proof budget 100 - 0 (the votes are certainly there), McConnell would be making a pretty big step toward bringing some power and authority back to congress. By refusing to hold a vote to shield Trump from having to veto, he is essentially allowing the executive to hold congress hostage. Of course, McConnell is up for re-election in 2020. By not caving in to Trump, he would open himself to a primary challenge. Personally, I think Republicans would be making a colossal mistake by ditching McConnell but that is what happens when you let fringe groups take over the party.
 
One aspect of this that isn't being discussed as much is the squandering of a perfect opportunity to strip some power away from the executive

This would be spectacular if it happened ... but I am not really holding my breath, not just on the current issue, but in general. The executive is far too strong. The problem is that people like it that way when "their guy" is in office, bitch about it endlessly when "not their guy" is in office, then forget about it when "their guy" is back in. Which is why I have zero sympathy for Democrats that are bitching about it now and will have no sympathy for Republicans bitching about it in the future.
 
Well I'm bitching about it now and I'm pretty sure I did when Obama was in office. PM me if you'd like to donate to my campaign. :ninja:
 
Trump's base isn't big enough to win an election.
What about Trump's base plus the Republican base (i.e. those who would vote for the Republican candidate even if it happened to be a black, Muslim woman). The latter are probably already happy with what they have got from Trump - i.e. conservative judge appointments for the Supreme Court.
 
What about Trump's base plus the Republican base (i.e. those who would vote for the Republican candidate even if it happened to be a black, Muslim woman). The latter are probably already happy with what they have got from Trump - i.e. conservative judge appointments for the Supreme Court.

Still not enough as many of those are the same people
 
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