if the cr passes then the administration will have a substantial slush fund from the departments and agencies that have been scuttled with which to do whatever they want with. a shutdown is really bad but the other options are worse. this is harm reduction
this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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As a non US person, it is deeply sad to read this two party crap even at this advanced stage of the collapse of your country. When are you lot going to learn that you already don’t have an impartial head of state, you don’t have impartial supreme court. Everything is political in USA. So you really fcking want to make sure you have more than 3 parties. You’re still not thinking outside the box, and you’re keeping this us them dynamic alive.
With the weaponisation of the DOJ, the dems have Kompromat on them too. They are all scared. They are all walking the same line. That’s why Bernie is so powerful, and people are doubting if AOC is up for the job.
The GOP is infected by Trump and anything from the McCain era is long gone. The DEMs have failed to lead since Obama. There are no two parties left. There is a carcass of an old political establishment leftover, and the only guy saying anything that makes sense is a geriatric that can drop dead any day.
Two parties will always get you to this kind of impasse. Truly saddening to see the lack of creative political thinking on a progressive platform like Lemmy.
Oh yeah, when was the last time your country had a violent popular uprising that deposed a highly militarized government AND managed to build an effective democracy in the aftermath?
"Just do a revolution bro" is the most useless goddamn shit
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What exactly do you expect us to do besides a violent revolt?
Violent revolt and sign an improved constitution
It's a fine idea and despite being a longshot it's probably the only way anything good ever happens in America again, but a word to the wise:
You go into a revolution with the people you've got, not just the people who have their head on straight. The ideological mix of America currently isn't the group I'd pick for outlining the underpinnings of a new republic.
Not saying a revolt is a bad idea even, just making the point that we live in an imperfect world, and politics make for strange bedfellows. The sheer geophysical fact of North America means the rift between urban and rural can never be truly reconciled.
But it can be minimized, ideally a new US would go back to see if we can rework the Articles of Confederation with some lessons learned from the EU. The states have largely settled into their borders and I suspect that the stupid competition that caused the Articles to fail could be corrected. Also we really need to prevent centralization of powers into the Federal government and the executive from ever happening again.
Back in colonial times it was very feasible to keep the executive in check. Nowadays it is a technological fact that the executive needs nuclear authority just to be in a position to make a timely counterstrike effort.
At least, this was the dogma last I checked, maybe there is enough interdiction capability now to change this dynamic. I would be delighted to learn otherwise, but given the necessity of secrecy in these things any evidence must be compelling.
That said - Until the logic of MAD ceases to prevail, there is an insane sort of game theory rationale for an executive with extensive powers, regrettably. It's hard to see how to get past the eventual nuclear war scenario without a one world government. With nukes we are walking a tightrope, but we cannot reasonably expect to do so indefinitely.
You could still have an elected commander in chief, just don't invest so much civil power into them. They don't need to have control over every fucking governmental department.
I'm only pointing out that nukes are fundamentally a threat to the rule of law. We can't invent a world without them just yet, but we should at least think of them as a systemic threat to the world we're trying to create
No they aren't, nukes as a weapon are better as a defensive or retaliatory response. Whichever country breaks the nuclear taboo will be evaporated by the survivors, hell there's a good chance that if any countries outright survive they may send expeditions into the offending country to hunt down theoretically surviving leadership.
Stop parroting shitty cold war propaganda. It's a piss poor excuse and there's no reason that the response must come from the executive head of state. It could be some dude named Jep who is known to have a cool head and will be shot regardless of if it's the correct response or not to ensure they don't fuck up.
...I thought we were just having a friendly chat up until now. I know this is a touchy subject, but Lemmy is too small to mistreat one another over differences of opinion.
Didn't mean to be a dick, just been hearing similar shit for years. Folks will say anything to justify their authoritarian shit.
I will say, I got my current impression from Hardcore History. The logical insanity episode - I'm open to the idea that it's wrong, but I'm not just going to switch views because it's being called cold war propaganda. Can you throw me a bone here?
Sure the simplest reason is that you don't need to have civil matters centralized just to maintain that rapid military response. Ideally the commander in chief and executive branch would both be elected but separate positions for example. You don't need a strong executive branch you just need a well working system, sure it's technically easier to have it under an executive but easy doesn't mean good.
Also it seems like more traditional bomber dropped nukes will take over once more, this means that the point is just to get them in the air before worst comes to worst. Most of the needed resources will already be assembled where needed meaning it doesn't much matter if the executive even exists still since everything should've been set up long before then.
My point is that the reasoning is flawed since it assumes that the most effective action is to have a strong centralized power. When ideally you'd want a well maintained decentralized network of response facilities.
I think I see. To your knowledge, does any nuclear power operate in this way? I'm only slightly familiar with the US system, and I just checked the UK and from what I'm reading, both countries pretty much have the president/PM as having ultimate authority.
While checking, I also read that the UK's submarine deterrents don't need launch codes from the PM at all, and rely solely on military discipline to prevent an illicit launch. Not entirely germane to this talk, but it's an interesting difference - and it's certainly less bound up with executive power.
The Soviet Union was the closest to getting to this ideal. The problem they had with achieving was technological in nature, were they capable of more modern forms of communication they could have possibly achieved it. Don't know if Russia is still trying to do it or not.
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And this is how you get folks to stay home on the couch in 2026.
And then yell at them in comment sections when the democrats lose to fascists again.
If you don't vote for them... They will lose...
They're not a hockey team where it doesn't matter if you participate as a fan or not. If they don't get votes then they don't get political power.
And what is the difference between them winning and losing? I’ve been voting for them for years and hating it every time and getting nothing but excuses.
And what is the difference between them winning and losing?
Are you fucking joking?
I’m frustrated. Democrats win and don’t get anything done because of republicans and then lose and don’t bother resisting the republicans.
Republicans make things worse, of course , but democrats don’t or can’t make things better.
I’m frustrated.
Of course you are. As am I. But that doesn't mean I'm willing to just "give up." Yes I'll vote against Trump at all chance even if it means I'll lose. Because I may not.
I don't want a leader who is fucking exciting or a firebrand. I just want a competent administrator who treats the nation as something to be preserved. And that's a hard sell against a cheap auto-salesman like Trump.
Republicans make things worse, of course , but democrats don’t or can’t make things better.
But those are the only two options. So you pick a democrat and hope for the best.
If the democrats are the best we can hope for then we are well and truly boned.
And how much longer am I gonna have to hold my nose and vote for an asshole I hate before they get enough power to mean I don’t have to?
Will I be dead before I can actually vote for someone I want to be in office? And even then will they have a stroke and start schlonging conservative dick?
Politics is a game designed to be so infuriating that most people rage quit.
This is why MAGA is winning. Even they aren't this stupid.
I’ve been doing the “smart thing” and voting blue in every election and writing y representatives and it clearly hasn’t worked.
So obviously the solution is to stop.
It clearly isn’t helping, so why not save myself the ulcer?
If doing the right thing is giving you an ulcer, maybe you ARE voting for the wrong party. MAGA might suit you better.
What's giving me an ulcer is me doing the right thing and everybody else fucking it up and things continuing to get worse despite me doing what everyone says I should. It's not working, it hasn't been working, and it will continue to not work while the country and planet go down the tubes.
Better people than you have called me MAGA because I hate the Democrats for being complete fuckups
Who the fuck are YOU to think that "boo hoo I voted correctly why didn't it work??" It's a goddamn democracy. Your vote alone is a drop in the ocean. You have to convince others as well.
Why the hell should someone with no political experience, no money, and a life to lead take this on when there is ostensibly an existing organization whose job it is to do this? What then hell do they do with all that money we send them?
Do you feel better trying to drag everyone else down into your self pity?
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Because they haven't actually won in a long ass time. Aside from the few months in 2012 that gave us the ACA, it's been nothing but ties or Republican wins since the Bill Clinton days.
A political party that can't get power should be destroyed.
The political parties are not fucking sports teams who go out there and play and either win or lose. You vote for them, or don't, and they consequently win, or don't.
And isn’t the first job of a political party to win those votes and hence the election?
Do you even know what a political party is? It's not some company that you pay to provide you a service. It's not some big vending machine where you put in x and are disappointed you didn't receive y.
A political party is a group of people, largely volunteers, trying to convince people of their agendas.
You're trying to purchase a victory for Dems with your vote but it doesn't work like that. You're treating it like you're in line at McDonald's ordering a burger but getting cat food and now you storm in waving your receipt and want to talk to the manager.
Right, and they’re trying to convince people about their agendas to try to win elections, right?
I don’t expect it to happen like a transaction. But I do expect the very expensive political consultants who the party employs to at least win something.
If a political party is as bad as the democrats at winning and keeping power, what’s the damn point beyond employing very expensive and ineffective political consultants?
The democrats have been failures my entire life, and I still vote for them. I still donate and I even volunteered. And all my efforts are for naught because the party is terrible at doing the first thing it needs to do: Win votes.
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I don't like Schumer, or anyone in Democratic leadership, honestly, but I want people to think through how a government shutdown would go. A shutdown would almost immediately be felt by many people, as services stop, federal buildings and parks close, and people stop getting paid. These are all things people don't like, and they are also all things the Trump Admin are trying to do, despite being deeply unpopular.
A government shutdown right now because the Democrats blocked a spending bill would be met with wall to wall coverage in the corporate media about the Democrats blocking the bill. The Trump Admin and the right-wing media would then have carte blanche to blame the Democrats for everything bad about the economy that's coming down the pipe due to Trump's disastrous policies. Unemployment? Closed offices? National Parks closed? Checks not coming in? The Democrats did that!
Right now, Trump and the right-wing media don't have a leg to stand on when they try to blame anyone but themselves. A government shutdown right now would give their lies plausibility that currently does not exist, and it would be unlikely to extract any concessions from Republicans on this bill anyway, because many of them want the government to shut down, in some cases permanently.
You’re right. The GOP wants to blame the democrats for the economy and dismantle the government at the same time.
A government shutdown would let them do both.
That’s probably why the bad actors on lemmy are pushing for a shutdown.
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