Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicholasp27
So we will be shutting down again on February 8th
This is just to ease the pressure of no paychecks and to have a chance to spin the next shutdown as dem’s fault.
If he gets a wall in the next 3 weeks or they cave in the next shutdown then he will be vindicated and will hostage take every shutdown opportunity.
If they don’t cave, then march and April will be shutdown months and we’ll have a new record for longest shutdown
I have now seen this sentiment from a few posters and it makes a lot of sense, but I was thinking more on it last night and now I'm wondering if the Dems might still have all the leverage.
We just came out of the longest shutdown in our country's history. It was hugely unpopular, and the polls showed that
a. the majority of the public blamed Trump
b. the majority of the public are against the wall
c. the majority of the public feel that the wall is not worth the shutdown
So there is still not really incentive for Dems to cave and give Trump his wall. And because of how this shutdown went, Trump and the Republicans are going to be very hesitant to shut down the government again. So their only strategy if negotiations stall over the next 3 weeks is to somehow spin the failed negotiations as the Dems fault in a way that sticks with the public.
How do they do that? They just tried doing that with Trump's pathetic attempt at an "offer" but that didn't work. Only the Republican derposphere parroted the talking points "How can we negotiate if the Dems won't even show up" "He made a reasonable offer, now counteroffer" "Pelosi said not one dollar for the wall" but the media as a whole did a good job of calling bs on this line of thinking, pointing to the deals that Trump turned down last year, the fact that he said he'd own the shutdown, etc.
The only way the Republicans could spin the next shutdown as Dems falt is if Trump ACTUALLY comes to the table with a deal that is reasonable, or can be spun to be reasonable in a way that permeates more people.
I think in the interim, the Dems should be nonstop putting out the message that another shutdown is unacceptable, that shutting down the government as a tactic of negotiation is completely unAmerican, and remind people about what just happened. Essentially, criticize the possibility of a shutdown and already paint Trump and the Republicans to blame for it pre-emptively.
Now, who the hell knows if they'll do this or how they'll play it, but I certainly don't think it's a foregone conclusion that this is going to be bad for the Dems. If they just think a few moves ahead they should realize that they still hold most of the cards and should be all right.
I know that we like to cavalierly joke about how the Dems always f everything up but with Pelosi's performance the past couple of months, I'm a little hopeful that she has finally tapped into the realization that there is strength in the fact that the majority of this country disapproves of the president, so there's no need to placate him.
By the way, I just want to fully acknowledge that I'm a noob in the world of politics and I am fully open to getting flamed for any idiotic opinions or takes that I express.