Republican Speaker Mike Johnson predicted Monday the federal government shutdown may become the longest in history, saying he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they hit pause on their health care demands and reopen.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson predicted Monday the federal government shutdown may become the longest in history, saying he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they hit pause on their health care demands and reopen.
I can’t help but feel like this would already be over if Democrats were better at messaging. The Republicans are so obviously on the wrong side of this, but every time Schumer opens his mouth poll numbers come out instead of rising insurance premiums.
I do think republican donors owning all the major media leads people to only see the worst messagers in the party as they censor the better ones’
Media isn’t owned by people sympathetic to Democratic talking points.
Doesn’t matter what your message is if no one plays it.
The Democrats aren’t even sympathetic to Democratic talking points. Why would the media be?
Well, the democrats do use the democratic talking points whether the politicians actually believe in them or are more beholden to their rich donors. But the real problem is the media who spin everything against the democrats. As a result, people (like you) are subconsciously programmed to hate on the democrats regardless of what they say.
Citation needed on that one. The media is owned by the same people who own the politicians.
No the problem is that Democrats are all talk and no action and people like yourself are subconsciously programmed to always invent or repeat excuses for why that is. You think that Democrats are the good guys just by virtue of Republicans being the bad guys. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a Marvel movie with clearly defined heroes and villains battling it out. In the real world, they can all be villians. Some just dress their villainy in flowery language.
I didn’t say they were the good guys. They are better. And that is the salient fact when it’s a two party system. They are beholden to the billionaires but they pull more to the left than the gop. It is because they’re financed by the billionaires that they can’t go too progressive or else they lose their funding (and ability to get elected). And they’re not pedo supporting, full on fascist and bat shit crazy which is also a good thing. But idiots who fall for the right wing propaganda see them as as bad or worse than the gop. Those who get confused and become too unmotivated / lazy to vote are just as bad. You can certainly argue the democrats aren’t progressive enough, and I totally agree with that; but they are monumentally better than the gop right now. Not voting for the dems is cutting off your nose to spite your face; it’s stupid. That we have a Republican government is purely because too many Americans are idiots and fall for the right wing media.
Which is just a roundabout way of saying they’re the good guys and regardless of how heinous they become they’ll still be the good guys to you because the Republicans will always be worse. They never need to actually accomplish anything because they’ve permanently earned your vote by simply not having an R next to their name. You’ll ensure they stay in power despite actively working against you because they aren’t the GOP. See where this logic falls apart?
That we have a Republican government is because the Democrats feel entitled to your vote and are unwilling to actually fight for anything but themselves. They have people like yourself who will blame literally everyone but them for their own poor performance. It turns out “vote for us because we’re not Republican” doesn’t resonate with voters as much these days. They’ve had numerous opportunities to actually earn votes by fighting for us, but they feel they don’t need to adapt or improve themselves because being “less evil” should be good enough for the American public, right? Being diet-Republican is good enough.
You’ll spend your energy fighting for people who you admit are bought and paid for, that you admit won’t defy their rich masters, that you admit “aren’t good,” but refuse to alter your behavior in any way while complaining about how bad things are. You’ll spend your energy arguing that we need to keep things bad or they might get worse (as they continue to get worse) while completely refusing to let others argue for a better way. This is why the country is the way it is. There’s very little difference between you and the Republican base doing the exact same thing for their chosen candidate. You’re all just engaging in diehard team sports despite both teams being absolute garbage and you want to keep it that way.
I’m not arguing for the sake of the democrat politicians, but for the sake of the country. It’s not a matter of supporting a team, but choosing which politician of the viable options is better. ‘Team’ support is when you vote against your own interest because of a historical affiliation. Dems are better so voting for them is logical. I understand you feel the democrats aren’t good enough and you think if they don’t get enough votes, they’ll change to be more progressive, but unfortunately that’s not likely to work. Furthermore it gets us trump and other rightwing assholes in power for another four years - and that’s really bad. It’s on you if you don’t vote for the better option.
You don’t see how drastically you’re contradicting yourself here? What makes any candidate that isn’t a Republican or Democrat “unviable” in your eyes other than historical affiliation? It’s not illegal for them to be on the ballots and it’s not illegal to vote for them, so the only way for you to consider them unviable is that they aren’t affiliated with the party you vote for historically. It’s not about First Past the Post or the two-party system you’re desperately trying to protect here. Those are both artificial constructs that only exist because people like yourself keep them in existance. Democrats have proven themselves to be unviable considering they keep losing elections allowing Republicans to seize control of every branch of government, so what exactly is the downside to kicking them all to the curb where they belong?
You’re literally arguing that Democrats will never improve, yet we should vote for them anyway because that will somehow ‘stop’ the Republican party from existing. I’d love it if you could expand this belief out and outline how things will ever improve by continuing to support the very people who’ve brought us to this point and rejecting everything and everyone that hasn’t. You claim you’re arguing for the sake of the country, yet your argument is that we should continue to do the same thing over and over while also arguing that nothing will change or improve by doing so.
It’s not because they’re incompetent. It’s because they don’t give a shit about you or any of us and they don’t see themselves as part of the group of people that have to experience the consequences.
Both. It’s both of those things.
After a while, incompetence and stupidity is no longer a sufficient explanation for this sort of behavior and the most parsimonious explanation is that they do not feel the same pressure that you or I do and are acting accordingly.
It’s not sufficient, no, but it’s still part of the explanation
Have you met the Baileys? The imaginary (conservative) voters that Schumer bases all his policy decisions on? Watch this clip from Last Week Tonight and get a whole new understanding of his incompetence.
The Baileys: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)