I recently spoke with someone who works closely with Republicans in the Senate, and he indicated that when Trump tanked the CR bill in December, that was the last straw for many Republican Senators. I asked wtf they are doing, then while all this crazy **** is going on, and he essentially said that they are waiting for a time that is opportune for them. I threw out the Muller report and he wouldn’t say anything. My guess is that they are waiting for the Mueller report to give them the political cover they need to “cross” the base.

Guys, I think it’s important to once again remind everyone that one time, Obama wore a tan suit.

Narrator: They didnt.

Didn’t want to read that whole thread and get aids. Am I correct that Inso thought that bananas evolved into birds? Lol.

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Only into the yellow ones. Stop trying to create an atmosphere of illogical reasoning around his arguments by omitting this. We know you did it on purpose.

Home construction has really slowed down

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This doesn't make all that much sense. Senate Republicans can reopen the government any time they want.

I think the problem is that if Trump vetoes they will be seen as going against Trump and even overriding a Trump veto seems sort of like a soft impeachment. They definitely will want to have enough cover to evade the Republicans civil war of 2019.

It is not possible for anyone to lick boots harder than you.

Had he decided on the food and not crowed about how great he was for serving the ****, nobody would give a damn. Its his blowhardness, not his idiot decisions themselves.

Holy ****, Inso is lying about something that os easily resesarched again? Color me ****ing shocked.

I take back my previous post about Keed and bootlicking. Inso made it obsolete like ten posts later.

This may be an accurate description of how they see the situation, but it in no way reflects reality. If that's how they see the situation, it just emphasizes how deeply Republican legislators have debased themselves in service to Trump, which tells you all you need to know about how to interpret any claims that they will grow a spine and attend to the needs of the country on the crossing of some vaguely specified future Rubicon.

Democrats are not getting enough credit for how they’re handling the shutdown. Admittedly it’s pretty obvious strategically, but to my knowledge not one of them is publicly trying to be the “reasonable” guy looking to “bridge differences” or whatever. A unified “**** you and your stupid wall” message is under appreciated, imo.

Once again the Onion nails it.

Chuck Schumer Honestly Pretty Amazed He Hasn’t Caved Yet

Yeah, this is the way I interpreted the conversation. Essentially, the shutdown isn’t hurting many R. Senators at this point, ie they don’t really care about it, but Trump’s incompetence, hanging them out to dry in the CR debacle, did damage them, and those type of things are what they fear/hate the most, evidently.

For many (all?) senators, there are multiple realities. Basically, whatever their constituents believe is the reality they operate in because none of them will tell a constituent, you’re dumb and ignorant. So that’s one reason Fox/conservative Media is so powerful, because they essentially control the reality for the Republican constituency. At least, that was my takeaway from the conversation with this person. I have no idea whether he’s right, but I give greater weight to his opinions than any opinions I read on here or in the news.

See my post above, but this person literally told me that there are “multiple realities” for senators.

ISIS claims responsibility for an attack that killed American service members in Syria.

These Senators are doing quantum mechanics, it seems.

This just seems like standard cognitive dissonance. What they're actually going to do is slavishly follow Trump and Fox News, but they want to believe that they're capable public servants who deserve to be entrusted with their constitutional powers of office and who are smart enough to understand that the shutdown is an insane fiasco that's really destructive and unjustifiable. How do you bridge the gap? With some fantasy story about how they are just biding their time, waiting for the opportune moment to step in and take a brave stand. I mean, even in your friend's telling, the shutdown was the "last straw," but somehow they are still waiting on additional straws to land before it's time to act. In the real world, the time to act was long, long ago.

I don't think you need to go that far into delusionland to find them. Being aware that going against Trump will hurt their chances of re-election is enough to explain behaviour.
They don't need to tell themselves that they are doing it for a greater good. Some of them may think that but most likely not all of them.

I know I'm a couple hundred posts late, but I had to point out that this is just so ****ing wrong. I understand that things like motivated reasoning exist, but you'd have to have literally no idea how things work to come up with this take.