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Originally Posted by Anteater
1. A shutdown always seems to happens when two sides disagree on a key issue. I'm praising Trump on this particular shutdown because it became obvious that the Democrats wanted to fly off to Puerto Rico rather than come up with a deal. They were the ones who "caved" by putting Trump into a position where he could shut down the government in the first place. It's like "guys, you were willing to send 20 billion to Mexico and South America without batting an eye. If he wants 5 billion let him have it and then use the whole debacle against him in 2020". But noooooo, "Hey, lets shut down the government and let Trump set the stage to do crazier things later. I'm sure that won't blow back on us at all later on..."
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^ Given that in the end Trump approved the deal that was already on the table from Day One, the shutdown achieved nothing except misery for Fed workers and a massive economic downturn. I can't see much to praise in that.
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Basically, I believe their reaction to Trump's stubbornness came off as ridiculously dumb. They sound nicer on T.V. because they're all rehearsed, but they're everything that's wrong with our political system. They took their salaries and flew off to chill with celebrities instead of trying to outsmart the POTUS or make a deal sooner.
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^ I imagine politicians largely choose how rehearsed they want to be before making public statements. TBH I think that Dems sound nicer because they have at their disposal facts, empathy, logic and humane policies. Trump comes up blank on all of those qualities - that's really why he suffers so much in comparison.
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2. Trump sought funding for the Wall back in 2017 as well and Democrats + RINOs couldn't come up with a good deal then either: didn't even make it to the Senate. And all he asked for back then was 2 billion.
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^ That seems to bear out the folly of Trump's demand for wall funding. The Mexicans wouldn't fund his wall. For two years a Republican Senate and Republican House wouldn't fund his wall. He should've realised that the Dems wouldn't either. Why was he even asking them to? He'd have a better chance if he called in a favour from his pals, Derapaska and Putin, and asked them to fund his wall.
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3. Considering the fact that Trump was already in the process of passing a bill to provide backpay to workers effected by the shutdown, it is safe to say that the timeline supports my version of events as opposed to yours. He never intended it to go on beyond a month's time. He thought they'd either cave or push him to Operation: National Emergency. Otherwise, the timing of him signing a bill for backpay to federal workers is too coincidental.
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^ So when he said the shutdown could go on for "months, even years" what was that, some see-through negotiating ploy that failed? I don't understand how his incompetence at judging his opponents and his refusal to heed his advisors has become part of your argument for praising Trump's shutdown.
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4. Fed workers always get the short of the stick during a shutdown. Does everyone despise Bill Clinton retrospectively when he shut down the government for relatively petty disagreements in the mid 90's? Of course not. The same will be true of this. It's just another petty bump in the road, just instead of Bill Clinton screaming about education moneys its Trump wanting to fulfill another campaign promise.
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^ I thought Trump's comment about Fed workers, "They'll make adjustments. They always do" was one of the most callous, out-of-touch dismissals of other people's suffering that I have ever heard. Your comments in bold run it a close second tbh.
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5. "I didn't notice either of them working full-time to develop methodologies that work" doesn't mean anything. My point still stands. Plus, you need to take media coverage of any given event or narrative with a grain of salt. None of those reports have any clue what McConnell or anyone else was working on. CNN isn't living in his sock drawer.
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^ It's true that I rely on a couple of mainstream channels for my US news, but even senators were asking where McConnell was, and by Mitch's own admission he effectively abandoned all pretence of marshalling the Senate so that it was a third voice in the negotiations. Until Day 33, by his own declaration, his basic position was to wait and rubber-stamp whatever Trump told him to.
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Limited research again, but this was an appraisal I heard this morning on CNN about post-shutdown Trump:
"His popularity fell even furthur... he comes out of this much weaker ... with much less ability to move forward"
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And finally, just a couple of the most obvious shortcomings to a border wall that Trump is failing to address:-
"It's a tunnel... where we have a wall already" >>
Other probs relate to eminent terrain land purchase and the stats on where and how immigrants and drugs arrive in the US: for drugs, mainly the coasts, the controlled crossing points and airports, and in the case of illegal immigrants, the Canadian border is actually more porous. That's how Melania started working in the US without the requisite permissions I believe. Even if that's not true, the overall figures will mitigate strongly against Trump's notion that there is a national emergency at the southern border, especially as illegal border crossings there are close to a historical low at the moment. Trump's wall is a non-solution to a non-problem.