quote:

Serious question - who here thinks she can out-petty Donald Trump?

She doesn't have to out-petty him. She has to outlast a few of his GOP foot soldiers, just enough to create a crack that grows into a chasm.

The problem, of course, is that the Federal workers who are harmed are, in fact, disproportionately
Democrats, I'm sure. So she has to accept that damage and work to ensure that Trump can't order his way into minimizing how the shutdown harms GOP supporters. Hard, I know, but she must let lots of Americans hurt in order to stop this sh!t.

As E.J. says,

This must be the last shutdown

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This must be the last shutdown, ever. No president or group of politicians should be able to wreck government and inflict suffering on its employees as a form of brute force to get their way.

Any deal to end this nonsense must therefore include a measure akin to the no-more-shutdowns proposal from Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) disarming those who so disrespect government that they’re willing to throw the country into chaos.

It also means that continuing to resist President Trump’s intransigence is not a radical position. It is the moderate position.

It is the moderate position.

quote:

Trump wants rational people to be so horrified at the damage he’s willing to inflict that they’ll cave in. It’s his M.O., as Damian Paletta and Josh Dawsey noted in The Post: “He creates — or threatens to create — a calamity, and then insists he will address the problem only if his adversary capitulates to a separate demand.”

Giving in to such behavior is not moderate, reasonable or sensible.

Indeed.

If Trump tries to concentrate the pain of the shutdown on Democratic constituencies, the Democrats need to find ways to broaden the pain to hurt GOP constituencies, while minimizing it on Democratic constituencies. No farm payments. No federal crop insurance. No federal loans to farmers. Let a some farmers lose their farms. Hard to say, but this is not a "politics as usual" era.

You’re conflating the two issues I’m trying so much to keep separate.


Absolutely she should not budge an inch on the ransom demand.


That has absolutely nothing to do with disinviting him to the SOTU.

Yeah, but I like the theatrics of keeping the Orange Buffoon off of that historic stage. The fewer SOTUs I have to endure from him the better ...

Regarding norms... She's not saying no SOTU address ever, she's saying "not until after the gov't is opened" and I think it needs to be characterized that way.

Just for reference in case anyone hasn't seen it:

She starts off without using a noun. She doesn't get to her point until the next to the last sentence. It's perfect.

Right, SK. But escalations beget escalations.

There’s a really good chance we’ve witnessed the last SOTU where congress and the president aren’t of the same party.

This was unnecessary, it didn’t help the negotiations about reopening the government, it just made it more personal.

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Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Right, SK. But escalations beget escalations.

Good point,

quote:

There’s a really good chance we’ve witnessed the last SOTU where congress and the president aren’t of the same party.

Ugh, you may be right.

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This was unnecessary, it didn’t help the negotiations about reopening the government, it just made it more personal.

This is interesting... because it’s always personal with orange man, and re the shutdown, it doesn’t get much more persona than taking away people’s paychecks....

So I don’t know...

Either way, time will tell how this plays out and what the long term ramifications are.

I'm perfectly fine with this escalation. I think it's about time a smart Democratic leader hit the buffoon where it hurts. She has also emphasized an important substantive point in the process. The shutdown is Trump's doing, and all he has to do is allow a real House and Senate vote. Then the ball is in McConnell's court, of course.

The bluffer-in-chief loses the bluff:

Trump Bluffed: Pelosi Called it

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

There’s a really good chance we’ve witnessed the last SOTU where congress and the president aren’t of the same party.

State of the Union with the President and both chambers of Congress (and all Supreme Court justices) under one roof is unnecessary. I say this in general, regardless of the current controvery, personalities, or parties in power.

It makes poor security sense to have so much of the leadership/key people from all three branches of government all at the same place at the same time, all just for good TV.

Well, the TV era is waning. Publish a written report, make a set of slides, make a web video, heck, tweet out the salient points and be done with it.

I agree it's unnecessary and would prefer that we were more Jeffersonian than Wilsonian about it, as I said above. But this isn't the way to get there.

The title is great.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
I'm perfectly fine with this escalation. I think it's about time a smart Democratic leader hit the buffoon where it hurts. She has also emphasized an important substantive point in the process. The shutdown is Trump's doing, and all he has to do is allow a real House and Senate vote. Then the ball is in McConnell's court, of course.

I'm perfectly fine with escalation, too.

We have a President who refuses to accept norms, and uses his aberrant behavior to whip up his base. He needs to experience some personal pain. He needs to understand that other people can disrespect norms, too.

Someone point out a couple of weeks ago, and it was eye-opening for me, that Trump has avoided a nickname for Nancy. No Cryin', or Lyin', or Pocahontas. Just Nancy. He even announced that yesterday to reporters:

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In other major news, Trump finally unveiled his nickname for Pelosi, telling reporters, saying at one point “Nancy Pelosi – or Nancy, as I call her.”

There is a school of thought that he respects her in ways in which he does not respect other members of Congress. I wonder if it's true.

Anyway, that was a digression. My bottom line is that, if norms have no force for one side, they can't have force for the other, or else we will be taken advantage of. If they are going to play dirty, we have to play dirty.

Maybe someday there'll be an informal agreement (not with McConnell, who is a snake, but maybe with the next leader) to abide by norms to avoid mutually assured destruction. But that day will not happen while Trump is President.

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But that day will not happen while Trump is President.