# Trump's Shutdown **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 11, 2019, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577 "2019-01-11T06:18:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/481 "2019-01-25T21:16:24Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Pals and gals, this is not a time for gloating! (snicker) Or crowing, lording it over, (chuckle, chortle) but a time of acceptance and redemption (ROFLMAO!) > > Such a genteel and proper audience, but otherwise I would suggest someone make up a disgusting photoshop of Ann of Green Goebbels Coulter pegging Il Douche, while Nancy polishes and put away her steel ruler. I have this little scenario in my head of Trump’s upcoming SOTU address, where just as the dipshit gets the bit in his teeth, Speaker Pelosi hauls out her knitting and commences to work on a little baby bootie in full view of the cameras just over his right shoulder. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/482 "2019-01-25T21:17:28Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The challenges will take longer than Individual-1 has in the WH, even if Putin wins him another election. I’m thinking (and hoping) that they would also take longer than Individual-1 has left on earth, much less the WH. > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > (bolding mine) > > If you really think that, you haven’t been paying attention. If you really think that, the turmoil of the next 8-12 years is gonna really surprise you. > > [Nothing I wrote in this post is untrue today](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19149075&postcount=1). > > The government does not and has not been working for the majority of Americans for several decades now: it serves the wealthy almost exclusively, most often to the detriment of the masses. That was true 3 years ago when I wrote that OP and it’s still true today. > > How can you, all of you, not see that? 😕 Decades, centuries, how far back does it go, really? Government has always been about protecting the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Government started with people acquiring wealth through power and then telling others what they can and cannot do. I don’t know that a government could ever exist that actually ostracized the powerful and wealthy, all attempts at getting rid of wealth have seemed to fail, usually very poorly. Now, what the government can and should do is to temper the short sighted greed of the wealthy. To give economic opportunity for growth in the long run, reducing their need to take everything they can get their hands on now, now now now. Even the wealthy and powerful, in an enlightened era, recognize that they actually control far more wealth and power if there is a robust middle class. The middle class doesn’t exist for the benefit of the middle class, the middle class exists for the benefit of the wealthy. The larger the middle class, the more production and consumption that they can direct, control, and take their cut from. We get to vote, but so few of us are actually paying enough attention to be able to vote well that it is easy to mislead the electorate. We also don’t have all the choices we may desire. If I think that Asashi would be a great president (hah!), then I don’t get a chance to voice that opinion at the voting booth. We are limited in our choices before we are ever given a chance to make a decision. People vote on tribalism, they vote on single issues, they vote on fear. Very few vote based on a comprehensive analysis of the issues. One thing that does get people’s attention, OTOH, is the direct impacts to their lives. It is far easier to worry about the rights of someone who has a different orientation than you do, or the advancement of someone with a different skin color than you, or even the nourishment of someone on a different continent, when you are doing well yourself. When you are not doing well is not the time to ask for you to help out someone else. Now, this shutdown and the economic effects it is having does hurt a number of people. Many of them are already anti-Trump, so it doesn’t really do much. But, some of them are Trump supporters. Trump supports that thought it would be fun to watch other people get hurt by throwing a horse into a hospital. But, turns out, they are getting the harm now too, and that may be the only thing that actually makes them do any self reflection and change their mind. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/483 "2019-01-25T21:17:43Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I think he’s leaning toward national emergency, but I agree with JohnT that it’ll get challenged immediately. Anyone with a law degree or extensive political science knowledge who can game out the various scenarios of an emergency? That’s how I understand it as well. While this would obviously be an abuse of the president’s national emergency powers, it also seems like it’d be a win for folks who hate the border wall, and for Democrats at the polls: it’d be a heady combination of presidential temper tantrum, abuse of power, and ineffectiveness. Not a great idea, but no more harmful than his other tantrums, except to the Republican brand. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/484 "2019-01-25T21:20:19Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Decades, centuries, how far back does it go, really? Government has always been about protecting the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Government started with people acquiring wealth through power and then telling others what they can and cannot do. I don’t know that a government could ever exist that actually ostracized the powerful and wealthy, all attempts at getting rid of wealth have seemed to fail, usually very poorly. > > Now, what the government can and should do is to temper the short sighted greed of the wealthy. To give economic opportunity for growth in the long run, reducing their need to take everything they can get their hands on now, now now now. Even the wealthy and powerful, in an enlightened era, recognize that they actually control far more wealth and power if there is a robust middle class. The middle class doesn’t exist for the benefit of the middle class, the middle class exists for the benefit of the wealthy. The larger the middle class, the more production and consumption that they can direct, control, and take their cut from. > > We get to vote, but so few of us are actually paying enough attention to be able to vote well that it is easy to mislead the electorate. We also don’t have all the choices we may desire. If I think that Asashi would be a great president (hah!), then I don’t get a chance to voice that opinion at the voting booth. We are limited in our choices before we are ever given a chance to make a decision. > > People vote on tribalism, they vote on single issues, they vote on fear. Very few vote based on a comprehensive analysis of the issues. > > One thing that does get people’s attention, OTOH, is the direct impacts to their lives. It is far easier to worry about the rights of someone who has a different orientation than you do, or the advancement of someone with a different skin color than you, or even the nourishment of someone on a different continent, when you are doing well yourself. When you are not doing well is not the time to ask for you to help out someone else. > > Now, this shutdown and the economic effects it is having does hurt a number of people. Many of them are already anti-Trump, so it doesn’t really do much. But, some of them are Trump supporters. Trump supports that thought it would be fun to watch other people get hurt by throwing a horse into a hospital. But, turns out, they are getting the harm now too, and that may be the only thing that actually makes them do any self reflection and change their mind. I appreciate the reply to my post, but I don’t think you understand. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/485 "2019-01-25T21:20:24Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > When you consider the fact that America was pretty great to begin with, what he’s doing for the first term is turning America into a dystopian hellscape. > > I’d say he’s ahead of schedule on that one. Maybe it’s the same way he made a small fortune in real estate (by starting with a large fortune): make America great by making it worse since it was a-MAZ-ing before. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/486 "2019-01-25T22:24:33Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > …Speaker Pelosi hauls out her knitting and commences to work on a little baby bootie in full view of the cameras just over his right shoulder. And _then_ he gets pegged by Ann Coulter? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/487 "2019-01-25T22:40:27Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > (bolding mine) > > If you really think that, you haven’t been paying attention. If you really think that, the turmoil of the next 8-12 years is gonna really surprise you. > > [Nothing I wrote in this post is untrue today](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19149075&postcount=1). > > The government does not and has not been working for the majority of Americans for several decades now: it serves the wealthy almost exclusively, most often to the detriment of the masses. That was true 3 years ago when I wrote that OP and it’s still true today. > > How can you, all of you, not see that? 😕 I’m not saying that it is working for the people, only that it can. But we have to start by kicking some republican asses in elections, which isn’t going to be easy given the low IQ voters in this country. For most people, voting is a coin flip, which perpetuates the vicious cycle. Cynicism, assuming that voting between Democrat and Republican necessarily has to be a choice between a turd and a shit sandwich a la South Park, just feeds our broken political machinery. If this country can be convinced in social justice, in economic and racial justice, then we can finally get somewhere, but what’s needed first is a cataclysm that forces white males to lose their monopoly on power and on defining our society. This means will probably have to have some taste of economic and political catastrophe first. The problem this country has right now is that there is too much private power; the balance between private and public power needs to be reset, in favor of public power, but without centralization and public ownership of individual capital. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/488 "2019-01-25T22:48:29Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > And _then_ he gets pegged by Ann Coulter? If pegging must be involved, how about simultaneously while Pelosi looks calmly on, knitting away? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/489 "2019-01-26T00:37:29Z")
“Granma Nancy? Kids at school say you watched Trump being ‘pegged’. What does that mean?” “Ask your Mother, dear, Granma is knitting.” ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/490 "2019-01-26T12:43:30Z")
New York Daily News headline: [“CAVE MAN”](https://pics.me.me/1-50-saturday-j-daily-news-trump-blinks-in-standoff-with-dems-40963964.png) ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/491 "2019-01-26T12:56:05Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > This is shaping up to be Trump’s potential Waterloo. Moscow, maybe? It’s where Nappie got stopped the first time. Plus, you know… ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/492 "2019-01-26T13:01:49Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Moscow, maybe? It’s where Nappie got stopped the first time. Plus, you know… Yeah, let’s save Waterloo for Theresa May (close enough to Brussels…) ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/493 "2019-01-26T13:19:19Z")
_“Listen to them, the children of the right. What beautiful music they make.”_ Look, I won’t deny that the caterwauling of wounded Trumpiviks is pure euphony, and it’s predictable that auxiliary gargoyles like Ann Coulter and the rest of the no-soul gang, who thought they’d trained their monkey to dance, would pull out the knives. But there’s something - not unseemly exactly - decorum and Trump don’t belong in the same lexicon - but counterproductive, maybe? seeing **TRUMP CAVES!!!11@@** in the mainstream press and by left-leaning pundits and commenters. He IS still president, and will likely remain so for at least another two years, and still has the capacity to do incalculable harm on a whim. It’s like the puppy finally landed one on the newspaper and we’re rubbing his nose in it anyway. Maybe we shouldn’t be dancing around the fire singing “Yub Nub” just yet? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/494 "2019-01-26T13:49:00Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Maybe we shouldn’t be dancing around the fire singing “Yub Nub” just yet? Yeah, they danced despite the impending Endor Apocalypse from the raining metal from the ex-fully operational battle station. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/495 "2019-01-26T14:06:56Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > _…_ It’s like the puppy finally landed one on the newspaper and we’re rubbing his nose in it anyway. … Which makes me wonder, with the decline of printed news media how will future generations train their puppies? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/496 "2019-01-26T14:08:52Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > It’s like the puppy finally landed one on the newspaper and we’re rubbing his nose in it anyway. Maybe we shouldn’t be dancing around the fire singing “Yub Nub” just yet? I get what you’re saying, but we’re not all Trump Whisperers. ---
**Author:** ![JB99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/497 "2019-01-26T15:09:44Z")
I saw a Michigan GOP tweet thanking Trump for the shutdown. I genuinely thought it was sarcasm. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/498 "2019-01-26T15:20:35Z")
Thanks for helping people miss mortgage payments, while you got absolutely fucking nothing in return, Trump! Brilliant! ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/499 "2019-01-26T15:21:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Vinyl Turnip > It’s like the puppy finally landed one on the newspaper and we’re rubbing his nose in it anyway. Yeah, but he only landed it on the paper because Nancy Pelosi held him there and fed him laxatives until he did. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/500 "2019-01-26T16:26:54Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > _“Listen to them, the children of the right. What beautiful music they make.”_ > > Look, I won’t deny that the caterwauling of wounded Trumpiviks is pure euphony, and it’s predictable that auxiliary gargoyles like Ann Coulter and the rest of the no-soul gang, who thought they’d trained their monkey to dance, would pull out the knives. But there’s something - not unseemly exactly - decorum and Trump don’t belong in the same lexicon - but counterproductive, maybe? seeing **TRUMP CAVES!!!11@@** in the mainstream press and by left-leaning pundits and commenters. He IS still president, and will likely remain so for at least another two years, and still has the capacity to do incalculable harm on a whim. It’s like the puppy finally landed one on the newspaper and we’re rubbing his nose in it anyway. Maybe we shouldn’t be dancing around the fire singing “Yub Nub” just yet? I’m not sure I see it the same way. His harshest critics on this are the ones on his own side. The dems are celebratory, for sure, that the puppy finally took a shit without ruining the living room. It is the Anne Coulters that are rubbing his nose in it, demanding to know why shit isn’t all over the walls. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577.md?page=26)