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Never back down, never go along with authoritarians.
Yes, people are desperate for the Democrats to fight back
...and what we get is #Schumer and just enough other complicit fools to destroy us all.
@TCatInReality I don't think voting against continuing the operations of the US government is the salvation from self-destruction that you think it is...
There are plenty of ways to vote to keep the government funded. This was a vote to slash funding for whole swathes of the gov while funding others.
IMO, Dems had no reason to be complicit in that.
@TCatInReality No, there aren't plenty of ways to keep the government funded.
There is a single legal way. Congress votes to appropriate money. Other than that one specific way, there is no other way.
This was not a vote to slash funding. That is literally false, that is factually not what this was a vote for.
You're off talking about things that just aren't true. You're spreading misinformation here. And anyone with a basic knowledge of how the US government functions would know better than to believe this kind of nonsense.
No, what you're saying is not true, it's not how the federal government works and it never has been, even if certain politicians are promoting that story for political gain and certain media outfits are getting clicks from putting that kind of story out.
But it's not factual.
There are plenty of bills Congress could pass - maybe a clean CR, or a bill that is actually negotiated with Dems. Schumer didn't hold out for either. That's what I meant.
The budget bill they voted to proceed with has several budget line items reset to $0. It's true, check it out. That's what I meant about slashing gov.
And technical, this was a vote for cloture (a vote to have a vote). IMO, it's pendandic to say I'm lying what the vote was about.
@TCatInReality it wasn't up to Schumer, though. He's not the king of the Senate. He's just one of 100 senators.
We seriously need to stop letting senators use majority and minority leaders as scapegoats for their own positions.
It wasn't up to Schumer to hold out or not. It was up to every single Senator to decide whether to shut down government and accept that blame, and it's not crazy that they didn't want to do that.
And yes, technically this was a vote for cloture. I wasn't going to bring that up, but now that you mention it, that just proves that it wasn't what you said.
I don't have the time or interest to discuss the role of party unity or party leadership. Sure, sometime people break with the party.
But in this case Schumer *led* on Dems voting with the GOP. He absolutely gets a larger part of the blame, IMO.
As for the difference between voting for cloture vs voting for the budget, go ahead - be pendantic.
Have a good day.
@TCatInReality to me that comes across as saying you don't have the time or interest to discuss how the world actually works, how the US system actually functions in reality. And I think that's a big problem.
And yeah I see that a whole lot on the Republican side. I see Republicans constantly chirping about being part of the team when really, that promotes a false understanding of how all of this works, it buys into this very antisocial norm about how the US system of government is set up.
If you don't have the time or interest in speaking back against these norms that do such a grave disservice to the democratic principles underlying the US system of government, well, what's the point then?
I would encourage you not to play their game. I would encourage you to prioritize the interest in speaking out against this misframing about how the world works.
Parties formed almost immediately on the nation's founding and they are found in parliaments around the world. They exist because voting blocs work amazingly well. And a voting bloc uses party leaders and discipline.
You might see it differently. But I think hundreds of years in hundreds of countries shows this is a very realistic view how politics works.
That's why I'm not interested in discussing further. That and you repeatedly called me a liar. I'm done.
Put it a different way: in the US system, in contrast with so many other systems around the globe, I vote for specific representatives, not a party. That is how the US system works, very intentionally.
If you start focusing on party instead of the actual representatives that we are supposed to be holding personally accountable then you excuse those personally accountable Representatives from accountability, directly undermining the democratic structure of the US system.
If you don't like that some legislation passed, don't blame the party, yell at your representative to oppose it. It doesn't matter one bit what the party says because your representatives were hired by you to do the right thing, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the party.
The US system is based on relationships between voters and individual Representatives, not parties. The more you promote this idea of parties being central the more you shield those representatives from accountability.
Yes, the US does not have a parliamentary system. That makes it different. Whether for better or for worse. But it's what we have, so try not to undermine it so much.
