I'm morbidly fascinated too. When it started, everyone was saying that the Democrats had a strong position. They have the one house of Congress that budget bills have to start in, and Trump said on camera that he'd be proud to shut down the government over the wall. Pelosi got the phrase "Trump shutdown" out there before he could do the reverse, which sounds dumb to care about but that's the world we live in. The Democratic Party isn't in a great position in an absolute sense, but it logically seemed like enough to "win" the shutdown relatively quickly. But that logic didn't take into account the fact that Republican leadership is a bunch of sociopaths and Trump is crazy to boot. At this point I can only imagine 3 outcomes.
1. Dems cave and give Trump all the money he wants for the wall, because that's the rational thing to do except for the message it sends. $5 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the direct and indirect costs of a shutdown. We manage expectations and hope for the wall being pointless but also not too harmful, and the House investigation powers and Mueller to get some kind of justice in other avenues.
2. Support for Trump and the Republican Party plummets so far that Republicans in Congress essentially revolt. Something veto-proof gets through, and we shift to worrying about whether he can be impeached before he figures out how to launch nukes.
3. He gets tricked, like signing a bill with the word "wall" in its name that has no provisions for funding for an actual wall.
Honestly not sure which of those I'd call most likely at this point.
I disagree!
1) They have no curiosity -- idle or otherwise
2) Not bringing Garland up for a vote, and ramming the tax cut through both were both tactically sound decisions.
3) This government shutdown is different -- Trump is backed into a corner and he doesn't know how to get out of it. He just can't admit defeat, and neither side (the Democrats or the anti-immigration extremists) are making it easy for him to get some kind of fig leaf.
True - Garland and the tax cut were Mitch McConnell, not Trump. But the sociopath-human-toll-be-damned part is consistent.
Also, it remains possible that there is some compromise. Like $5 billion for Wall in exchange for undoing the tax cuts on the wealthy plus protection for Dreamers. Or something.
It's not like there's no deal in the world that Dems would accept. I bet a lot of Dems would take a path to citizenship for the DACA folks in exchange for wall funding (this was basically the Chuck & Nancy deal way back when). But the GOP isn't offering that, because their base doesn't like brown people. So instead they've offered some bullshit half-measure extending DACA protections for a few more years. Basically, Trump is bad at negotiations.
I don't think that's likely, but it could happen.
It seems like its all on Cocaine Mitch at this point. Other than Trump, he's the one guy who could decide its time for this to be over. But I notice he's stayed as fart the fuck away from negotiations as he possibly can.
Methamphetamine Mitch has better alliteration.
Asking For a Swift Kick in the Nuts Mitch is really pretty clunky.
If it was about the wall as a wall, then a deal would be easier. It's about whether Trump can break Pelosi or vice versa. That makes his National Emergency gambit necessary: he has to free himself from the power of the purse. Or he'll have to keep kow-towing to her for the rest of his term, and that's intolerable.
The unhinged base, just like Trump himself, cannot accept any deal, on anything, that makes it look like Trump is subordinate to Pelosi is any way shape or form. I guess that's how cults work.
Trump himself seems to have come to the same conclusion re McConnell, hence his practice of not bothering with Senate confirmation for new cabinet members.
I think an unappreciated difficulty is that the people on the GOP side who actually understand immigration know that the wall won't work. Ergo, they are NOT going to compromise by giving away something else they want as part of a negotiation -- they know that would be accepting a stupid, symbolic achievement while losing elsewhere.
You mean like Stephen Millers who don't feel like the wall adequately punishes brown people? Or defense hawks?
2.2: They were tactically sound because they worked. If this works, then it was tactically sound too. The Republicans are more entrepreneurial in politics -- they are much more willing to try things than the Democrats are.
Wall can't fail you. You can fail Wall.
Sociopaths are good at playing chicken because they're curious about what the crash feels like.
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They identified an alleged immortal, a man with auspiciously long ear lobes, and used him to mobilize hill people and Tai.|>
6
Trump is bad at negotiations.
Define "bad". And "negotiations". So far he's getting everything he wants, except for a specific dollar amount earmarked for a wall. Whether a bill has become law has little to do with it.
He wants the government shut down, and currently, it's shut down. He hasn't cared in the past if responsible people who care about good governance dislike him. He likes attention unless it's focused on corruption, and this whole mess isn't. If in the end he doesn't get funding for a wall, people who care about facts will view it as him losing, but again, he hasn't cared in the past about that.
If this goes on for a month, even a lot of Republicans will have to admit there's something wrong, but by then a lot of Democrats will be hurting a lot more than them. It's easy to imagine him being tricked or otherwise outmaneuvered, it's happened before, but I don't want to try to predict any details. Trump is indeed bad at getting what he wants in some ways - see above about "Trump shutdown" - but so far things seem to be going his way. Not to be all alarmist or overestimate his intelligence, but this really seems different from previous shutdowns and administrations.
6: "Basically, Trump is bad at negotiations."
Who knew? I mean, except for the majority who voted for someone else.
I think this plays against Trump in that a majority of the country doesn't like him and the overwhelming majority of that majority thinks he's an asshole. As voters evaluate this situation, people are going to apply their priors, and that doesn't work for Trump.
This, of course, leaves aside the genuinely horrible nature of this maneuver by Trump.
It's possible that Cyrus didn't mean this literally about Trump:
He wants the government shut down
But taken literally, it's wrong. And the fact that it's wrong is the key to the shitty position that Trump is in.
Trump wanted tax cuts and got them because he had the votes. McConnell wanted Merrick Garland rejected, and got that because he had the votes.
Here, the goal is not a government shutdown, but that's all they can accomplish with the available votes/authority. What Trump wants is a wall, or something he can call a wall, and he hasn't got the votes and everybody knows it.
Trump will do a speech, but even with a cooperative media, he won't be able to move the needle. He won't persuade anyone who isn't already in his camp. And that's what he needs to do: Make the Dems fear a political backlash.
There is a real bedrock principle involved here for legislators. If Trump, as an individual, can hold the government hostage for his wall, he can do it for anything. Even the Democrats are smart enough to understand that this is the place to make a stand.
By the way, isn't the ultimate outcome obvious? Trump declares a state of emergency to build the wall, solving the problem and allowing him to re-open the government. Then the matter goes to the courts, where Trump comes out okay (by his lights) regardless of the outcome.
You think that's what's coming tonight?
I said on the earlier shutdown thread, he's so adamant about it there must be something in it for him financially, like Trump Org already invested in steel slats and they're sitting on a loading dock at one of his golf courses.
It says a lot that this didn't happen for the first two years, yes? There was a brief shutdown but that was more complicated and I guess was resolved in the obfuscatory way we assumed this one would have been. I think the core reason behind the timing is he's terrified of being seen to yield That Woman an inch.
Even if it can be resolved at some point in an appropriately stupid way, as it drags the counter-Keynesian effects are more and more worrying, no? It could catalyze the next Crash.
Someone pointed out that Trump doesn't have an insulting nickname for Pelosi yet. My guess is that the nicknames come from a place of feeling like a cat playing with a mouse - outgaming someone in the court of TV ratings. Which is consistent with 14 and 27: that this taps a lot more rage and fury than malevolent toying.
... people on the GOP side who actually understand immigration know that the wall won't work.
Can you point to an explanation of why this is true? Would you rather have a wall that doesn't work or have e-Verify enforced?
I think the core reason behind the timing is he's terrified of being seen to yield That Woman an inch.
It's that, plus the panic setting in realizing that he didn't have the votes for a wall before but now he really doesn't have the votes, which sets up a taunt for 2020 something like: "Donald Trump, supposed to be famous for buildings but he couldn't even build a wall."
15 gets at a lot of the issue. There's basically 4 groups involved here: Democrats, McConnell, Millerites in the White House, and Fox News. You basically need the Democrats plus any two of the others. But it's hard for Democrats to actually negotiate directly with Miller or Fox News hosts. It's also hard to know exactly why Fox News decided to torpedo negotiations this time and what it would take for them to change their mind.
I think an underappreciated factor in this is that a big chunk of low-information Trump supporters think the government is bad and shutting it down is a good thing, full stop. That doesn't really help him now that the shutdown has happened and the actual effects are becoming clear, but I think it did contribute to making him think it was a good move in the first place.
Now that the actual effects are becoming clear and popping up in the media, the administration keeps scrambling to plug holes where they can (using entrance fees to clean up parks, coming up with some way to get tax refunds out, etc.). I think this shows that they really didn't think this through and don't like the position they're in now.
34.1: Said low-information Trump supporters include, well, Trump himself, right?
I think this shows that they really didn't think this through and don't like the position they're in now.
Or rather, that they're the last ones to learn that they didn't think this through, and now they don't like the position they're in.
I think the core reason behind the timing is he's terrified of being seen to yield That Woman an inch.
Fox News and other parts of his base raised hell with him on this occasion in a way they did not in the past. I'm not versed in the details, but didn't he raise the possibility of a shutdown this time and then "back down"?
I think they raised hell just because they know it's the last shot before another election.
It's possible that Cyrus didn't mean this literally about Trump:
He wants the government shut down
But taken literally, it's wrong. And the fact that it's wrong is the key to the shitty position that Trump is in.
Literally? Literally speaking, I can't presume to read his mind. And while we're at it, the government isn't literally completely shut down; there are at least 5 unaffected agencies and maybe a lot more, depending on what counts. (Source.)
That being said, "drown it in a bathtub." Making the federal government weaker, particularly the regulatory and social safety net parts, is one thing Trump fully agrees with the party on. The only reason they haven't done it before is that it's deeply unpopular, and in previous budget shutdowns there was reasonable doubt about how much the Democrats were to blame. This time, Trump cares about the disadvantages even less than McConnell. I wouldn't predict that Trump will draw this out literally as long as he can, but I would say that it's not hurting anything he actually cares about. I think "wants the government shut down" is a fair summary.
24: Could be. We'll see. For whatever it's worth, the Post is predicting he won't.
"Donald Trump, supposed to be famous for buildings but he couldn't even build a wall."
That should be turned into a rhyming stanza, like the Cleveland/Blaine mudslinging was.
What was so "continental" about James G. Blaine, anyway?
He lived most of his life on a continent.
Donald, Donald, builder man
Asks for wall but has no plan
Donald, goes to Mexico
The hombres say, "No dinero!"
Donald, he's a Russian man
No "a", no "the": "Wall is plan!"
Donald's fence, you see right through
"No, is Wall! I tweet it's true!"
Wall, wall, you're a con,
Perpetrated by the Don.
Is sharing polling data with a hostile foreign government "collusion"? Asking for a friend.
It's just being neighborly, when they have pictures of you with a peeing prostitute.
Well that's a relief. So to speak.
What if, instead of pointing out all the lies in Trump's speech, Speaker Pelosi just walks out, cues up the pee tape, and walks off.
Lacks subtlety. Better to cue it up and announce that she'll hit play unless he commits to signing funding bills.
I think that depends on whether or not he drinks the piss.
my name is Don
my brane is sik
for all my wos
i blame a chik
when i see red
and feel too smal
i hide my feer
i bild a wal
it stands so hi
all clere concrete
it calls me son--
i send the twete.
Petulant, feculent Trumpkin,
A moronic, if citified, bumpkin,
Whined and fussed for a wall,
Cos his hands were too small,
That anus-mouth cabeza de pumpkin
Some years ago, when we had a government shutdown here in MN, my late friend Adam and some other folx from the activist scene organized a whole program of activities under the banner "Shut Down/Rise Up!"
It was perhaps too ambitious a project for that collective to really succeed with, but it was great to see Adam so enthusiastic about the opportunity to turn people on to Anarchism, via the shutdown. Man, with Adam around it was much easier to bounce back from discouragement.
Apparently we are carrying on with no national emergency.
|| Alone, in the dark and the cold, in my little cabin in the ADKs. I turned on the heat about three hours ago, but it takes a good day or so for things to warm up, and tonight will be a bit chilly. But that's okay: I've got a sub-zero temp sleeping bag, and a nice bottle of Pinot Noir, and a working internet connection, and it's not as though I can't deal with a bit of chill, I was born and raised in Ottawa, after all....so it's all good...There is not another living soul for miles around, and I'm tucked in for the evening, and the snow on the lake looks very beautiful.
Tap, tap!...oh dear God, there is someone at my door. And my door is not all that easy to get to, you'd have to trudge down an unplowed laneway, and without snow shoes you might sink into deep snow...
It's the sherriff. Because of course it is. Naturally, I invite him in, and he assures me I haven't done anything wrong, it's just that my car is parked on the side of the highway, and they need to plow, owing to the freezing rain. I need to move my car. So I'm lacing up my Kodiak boots, in preparation for my unplowed laneway, while the sherriff asks me about the weather in Ontario, and we exchange pleasantries about the ice and the snow, and etc. I ask him if he's ever visited Canada. Yes, once, on a hunting trip. And I'm thinking, this guy probably voted for Trump, and I should probably hate him, except I need him to help me to move my car. He finds a place for me to park about a mile down the road at the hotel, and he apologizes for making me come out on a cold night (ha! by Ottawa standards, it's a bit nippy out, but not really cold...holy Mother of God, but Ottawa in January is seriously cold...), and then he thanks me for being so cooperatve, and I'm thinking, 'Did I even have a choice? And do I even get America'|>
I placed a wall in Rio Grande
And huge it was, upon the border.
It made the slovenly immigrants
Surround that border.
The immigrants rose up to it,
And scattered around, no longer wild.
The wall was huge upon the ground
And tall and of a checkpoint in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The wall was gray and steel.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Rio Grade.
Excellent work, Wallace. I eagerly await "The Idea of Order at Mar-a-Lago."
"Like nothing else in Rio Grande."
Sigh.
🎶 It's a small world after wall 🎶
The only emperor is the emperor of (two scoops of) ice cream.
Call the builder of border walls,
The carbuncular one, and bid him whip
In trumped up speech jingoistic slurs.
Let the networks dawdle in such dreck
As they are used to air, and let the flacks
Fake numbers for last night's broadcasters.
Let be be finale of seem
The only president is the president of ice cream.
Take from the forger of steel,
Having the key contracts, that sheet
On which he bolted his portraits once
And spread it so as to cover the fence.
If its sharpened spikes protrude, they rise
To show how tall it is, and wise.
Let the strobe affix its beam.
The only president is the president of ice cream.
76 Applies to a number of the comments above.
3rd day RBG has missed oral arguments. This does not look good.
I'm sure she has lots of sick leave built up.
So, wait, you're saying that the stability of your political system - even the wellbeing of your entire constitution and system of government - is closely linked to the state of health of one unelected but reasonably spry nonagenarian woman?
WE ARE NOT SO DIFFERENT AFTER ALL, YOU AND I.
Oh, a mere stripling then. Imagine my relief.
What crises would the imminent enthronement of Charles precipitate?
There's no way Pelosi would allow that.
I guess there's no law saying that the Speaker of the House need to be a member, so we'd just need to elect him Speaker and then impeach Trump and Pence at the same time. Obviously, he's not a natural born American, but it's pretty clear they don't check that for white people these days.
82. I think people are convincing themselves that it will lead to a significant break with the last 67 years because it would be mildly interesting and less horrible than all the other shit. But I think they're deluding themselves. It will be almost entirely the mixture as before.
There will just be a giant distraction from Brexit in the newspapers, for probably the first time since 2016, with the big headlines and then 1,000,000,000 editorial pieces saying either "Finally time to start ignoring this laughable anachronism" or "What kind of king will Charles be? Hmmmmm.... probably interested in architecture and dumb charity projects"
I read that he likes cheese, which speaks well of him as far as it goes.
There will just be a giant distraction from Brexit in the newspapers, for probably the first time since 2016
Ned, did you already forget about the WEDDING?
Plus some editorials like "Hey, I guess divorce is normalized in society now, who knew?"
Or, cut the Gordian Knot, demand the formation of a unity government, implementation of AV, new elections, no Brexit, referendum on the continuation of the monarchy (which Windsor will win handily, to its own silent chagrin).
I should hope that if he tried any intervention on that level, 90% of the British public would be like, "What a shame, the monarchy had a good run but it's over now."
Probably nothing good. Charlie has expressed politics, which are hyper-reactionary and not in a way that's at all popular, and he also has a habit of trying to intervene in politics by sending ministers crank letters in green ink (yes really) and a camarilla (of architects he likes).
As a taste of the guy, he wanted to land his plane on a remote Scottish island that is usually a captain's landing because it's difficult, pulled rank on the captain, came in too fast and too high and ran the plane off the runway, with the result that the captain's career was ruined because he didn't order him out of the cockpit. The captain had every right to tell him to fuck off and if necessary put him under arrest, dammit, and that's why the investigation board blamed him, but Jesus Christ, what a way to carry on. What a position to put him in.
I think pretty much everyone will miss Brenda, especially a lot of people who are studenty-radical about her now, but I don't think I've ever met or heard of anyone who is at all enthusiastic about the next one up.
As you may have guessed, this story defines him for me waaay more than cheating on Di. You have to project the real authority in the state without randomly fiddling with bits of it! You had one job!
Two jobs, if you count producing an heir.
Yeah, that one seems to have gone rather well, but perhaps it had more to do with the subcontractors.
We aim to please.
At the time of Diana's death, I thought the brilliant move would be for Charles to renounce in favor of his son. I still think it would be a good idea: maybe the fact that he won't do it is keeping the Queen alive.
At the time of Diana's death, I thought the brilliant move would be for Charles to renounce in favor of his son. I still think it would be a good idea: maybe the fact that he won't do it is keeping the Queen alive.
He does have the two so he could do it twice and let them fight it out.
There are some quite heavy politicians who are *extremely keen* that he should follow Charley Carp's advice. I don't know how their plots are getting on.
The Queen is very, very good at what she does. It's not clear to me that the British Crown can survive either her son or grandson as representative/symbolic embodiment. Which may be Mr. Carp's point?
I'm wiling to be King if they'll drop the rule about Catholics. They can have a committee pick the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I'm wiling to be King if they'll drop the rule about Catholics.
Yeah, you and me and Bonnie Prince Charlie. To the king over the water! But wait: didn't they end the anti-Catholic rules of succession about 6 or 7 years ago? Bring on the Stuarts, or something like that...
I think I just solved Brexit. Instead of being part of the EU, just have your queen restart her claim being Duchess of Normandy and then bring the UK back into the EU by personal union.
That's not how personal union works; otherwise, absolutely solid.
The Stuarts were fucking terrible. Probably the worst British dynasty.
Losing two civil wars in less than 100 years is a tough record to beat, it's true.
Well, there have really only been two British dynasties; there's the Stuarts and the Hanoverians. (And the Memorable Dutch King Williamanmary.)
If you expand the scope to the constituent kingdoms, the House of York doesn't look too great; and the House of Stewart looks even worse, but mainly due to its members' talent for dying at exactly the wrong time. James II, James III, James IV, James V... what a series.
||
OT: If anyone still thinks that the threat of AI catastrophe is something that only rich techbros worry about... think again. In fact they're less worried, don't think it's as imminent, and are more optimistic about the impact than the rest of the population. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/9/18174081/fhi-govai-ai-safety-american-public-worried-ai-catastrophe
|>
In Charles' favour, he has been consistently vocal on the right side of the biggest public policy issue of this century (climate change, and indeed environmental degradation more generally) for a lot longer than most politicians even in the UK, even back when all it got him was mockery in Private Eye. He was calling for carbon markets back in the 1980s IIRC. That makes up for a bit of eccentricity around architecture. which mainly seems to annoy all the right people anyway (the awful Norman Foster, the horrific Richard Rogers, the ghastly Zaha Hadid etc).
98. Charles believes that the rules for the heir, who has no real constitutional role at all except to stand in for the monarch when she's double booked or too old and tired, are different from the rules for the monarch. When the old girl pops her clogs he will become just as anodyne as her overnight.
106: I'm hoping most people don't know what it means any better than I do.
(And the Memorable Dutch King Williamanmary.)
This made me laugh.
Have there really only been two British dynasties, though? Does the House of Tudor not count, and what have you got against the Welsh?
The earlier dynasties are English not British, I take it.
THE ONLY GOOD BRITISH DYNASTY WE HAD MOTHERFUCKING CHARIOTS WITH SCYTHE BLADES
The earlier dynasties are English not British, I take it.
So the Stuarts were Scottish not British, then?
Where's ajay? He tends to get a bit hot under the collar about 1). Scotland; and 2). historic membership in the Loyal Orange Lodge. Other than that, I totally trust his opinion.
So the Stuarts were Scottish not British, then?
They started out Scottish and ended up British. Whether the transition is with personal union or the Act of Union can be argued.
Where's ajay?
Although he's a Scot, he does have to sleep now and then.
personal union or the Act of Union
IYKWIM.
'Make the monarch stand atop the globe again'
In 109 ajay subtly uses both Stewart and Stuart, a change in spelling that happened around the time James VI and I went south.
They really did have awful luck with the Jameses. Just about every one was a child king.
"The earlier dynasties are English not British, I take it."
Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Or Welsh or Irish. Hence talking about the constituent kingdoms.
Whoever the pre-Bruce house were did OK, what with David I, William the Lion, Alexander II, Alexander III and so on. (googles) House of Dunkeld, apparently. I hadn't heard that before.
Why name a royal house after a salmon fly?
To get rid of the old one that sounded too German.
Going back to the OP, is it even ethical at this point to go on a nonessential flight in the US? Or should I wear a "TSA STRIKE / UNJUST TREATMENT" sign or something?
At this point, it's clearly unethical to be American.
129: I actually just posted a new shutdown thread!
Can we talk about Barr there?