# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/161 "2019-01-15T21:43:09Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Am I the only one who noticed this testament to Donald J. Trump’s negotiating prowess? [ That’s not all there is about that lunch: [URL=“[https://twitter.com/elainaplott/status/1085252341018886145](https://twitter.com/elainaplott/status/1085252341018886145)”]guess what they were served?]([High drama, few results as Trump warns of 'long' shutdown | AP News](https://www.apnews.com/e6128489e74e45a6b87329cf4fc744a1)) (hint: _not_ hamberders.) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_McQwark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@Steve\_McQwark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_McQwark)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/162 "2019-01-15T21:45:40Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Am I the only one who noticed this testament to Donald J. Trump’s negotiating prowess? [Dems rebuff Trump invite, thwarting effort to bypass Pelosi](https://www.apnews.com/e6128489e74e45a6b87329cf4fc744a1)Dems standing united behind Pelosi; who’d thunk it? 1. They probably weren’t interested in Whopders for lunch. 2. There isn’t a Democrat alive who would trust Trump to hold up his end of a deal. 3. Even if Trump could find a Democrat to negotiate with him, it seems like he’d be better off trying to negotiate his plea bargain instead of his stupid wall. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/163 "2019-01-15T21:55:07Z")
I think McConnell has convinced himself that everything bad about Trump is just flim-flam created by the media and the Democrats, and believes that the Wall is an actual thing that Trump wants. He doesn’t realize that Trump will just keep the government turned off for as long as he can get away with and that there is no “deal”. This could take months before McConnell realizes that he’s the only person who can restart the government, and that he’s not accomplishing anything except to make people hate the Republican party more, in the meanwhile. ---
**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 15, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/164 "2019-01-15T22:00:34Z")
“Shutdown gives Trump allies what they want: Less government” > **[The shutdown is giving some Trump advisers what they’ve long wanted: A...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-shutdown-is-giving-some-trump-advisers-what-theyve-long-wanted-a-smaller-government/2019/01/14/70b22348-1427-11e9-90a8-136fa44b80ba_story.html)** > > They have shown a high tolerance for keeping large swaths of the government dark. > [@](#): > > President Trump has cast the shuttering of federal agencies as a standoff over his plan to build a wall on the southern border. But for many White House aides and allies, the partial shutdown is advancing another long-standing priority: constraining the government. > > Prominent advisers to the president have forged their political careers in relentless pursuit of a lean federal budget and a reined-in bureaucracy. As a result, they have shown a high tolerance for keeping large swaths of the government dark, services offline and 800,000 federal workers without pay, with the shutdown having entered an unprecedented fourth week. > … Let the whole thing crumble-- that’s what this group wants. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/165 "2019-01-15T22:10:04Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > “Shutdown gives Trump allies what they want: Less government” > [https://wapo.st/2FvrlGR](https://wapo.st/2FvrlGR) > > Let the whole thing crumble-- that’s what this group wants. I was explaining to my dad that taxes pay for services that are necessary for the economy and that the government helps to drive GDP growth. He was surprised because he had never considered that. He had always just viewed it as that the government took the tax money and used it to snort cocaine or something. I think there are a lot of people like that, who basically view the government as a black hole - but mainly because that’s the popular cultural image, not because they have actually put any thought into it. Regrettably, no good comes of demonstrating how wrong that is. And there are some things where the damage will be hard to correct. The government employs a lot of people. Dumping a million or two people into unemployment is not going to have good results on the economy. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/166 "2019-01-15T22:15:02Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Dems standing united behind Pelosi; who’d thunk it? [Chuck Schumer Honestly Pretty Amazed He Hasn’t Caved Yet](https://politics.theonion.com/chuck-schumer-honestly-pretty-amazed-he-hasn-t-caved-ye-1831768383). (You already know who wrote this.) ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/167 "2019-01-15T22:26:33Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I was explaining to my dad that taxes pay for services that are necessary for the economy and that the government helps to drive GDP growth. He was surprised because he had never considered that. He had always just viewed it as that the government took the tax money and used it to snort cocaine or something. I can’t fathom this. How can someone live an entire life in this country and not understand the scope of the impact their tax-funded government actually has on their lives, and the economy? My dad was no libertarian – he wanted to get everything the government offered, but by paying a lot less taxes. When I tried to reason with him that you couldn’t cut taxes without cutting services, he’d basically say to cut everything that didn’t directly benefit him, because that was all just waste and handouts. ---
**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 15, 2019, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/168 "2019-01-15T22:37:47Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > [Chuck Schumer Honestly Pretty Amazed He Hasn’t Caved Yet](https://politics.theonion.com/chuck-schumer-honestly-pretty-amazed-he-hasn-t-caved-ye-1831768383). (You already know who wrote this.) Aye; I knew. 😛 Still pretty funny, tho. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/169 "2019-01-15T22:50:41Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > My dad… wanted to get everything the government offered, but by paying a lot less taxes. When I tried to reason with him that you couldn’t cut taxes without cutting services, he’d basically say to cut everything that didn’t directly benefit him, because that was all just waste and handouts. \*Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a longlimbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counseled one and all, and everyone said, “Amen.” Major Major’s father was an outspoken champion of economy in government, provided it did not interfere with the sacred duty of government to pay farmers as much as they could get for all the alfalfa they produced that no one else wanted or for not producing any alfalfa at all. He was a proud and independent man who was opposed to unemployment insurance and never hesitated to whine, whimper, wheedle and extort for as much as he could get from whomever he could.\* ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/170 "2019-01-15T22:51:20Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Their jobs are gone, and their way of life depends on them being elevated above minorities. > > That the pine for a time that isn’t coming back, and that they are nostalgic for a time that was a nightmare for their fellow citizens, doesn’t make their desires any more noble or less unrealistic. > > Rather than accept that times have changed, that we no longer employee large numbers of men wielding picks and shovels to dig out fossilized trees from the ground to burn, that we no longer treat minorities as second class citizens, they prefer to see their fellow citizens suffer, and will take action to ensure that suffering, simply out of spite that they don’t feel as though they should have to change. The Petrified Forest is in Arizona. There are some country people that are mean, but I don’t believe that it is a majority. I’d rather think of them as ignorant than stupid. Is your point that they are racist? I believe some of them don’t want to be around some minorities, but I don’t think they want to see minorities suffer. Some of course, are real assholes. ---
**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 15, 2019, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/171 "2019-01-15T23:01:24Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > If Dems are smart, they’ll negotiate with the real decision makers: Trump’s ministers of bullshit Limbaugh, Coulter and Hannity. No. Don’t. Let the people see how destructive their fucked up ideas are, and how unaccountable they are, and how unwise it is to elect someone whose policies are tethered to unaccountable shock jocks. Do I expect all of Trump’s “base” to cause some sort of political sea-change event? Of course not. The goal is to chip away at Trump’s base so that, over time, it’s not a solid 35-38% of the country but maybe 15-20%. Did Howard Baker want to give in to Democrats when he made his infamous “What did he know, and when did he know it” speech? Of course not, but he knew that people in America were starting to get pissed off with conservative misrule. Bad enough the party leader promised “peace with honor” while secretly intensifying bombing raids in SE Asia. Even worse were his attempts to manipulate the bureaucracies who were supposed to serve the public dispassionately. But when America finally realize it was going to be humiliated in Hanoi and also have stagflation to boot…that was the ultimate insult. The least they asked for was a president who wouldn’t besmirch the hone of the oval office. But Nixon did that and then some. This president will fall when this country wakes up and understands that rhetoric, tone, integrity, and character matter – and intellect and competence, too. ---
**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 15, 2019, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/172 "2019-01-15T23:02:38Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > … I believe some of them don’t want to be around some minorities, … Those are the racist ones. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/173 "2019-01-15T23:03:41Z")
[If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/) I think your reading is too optimistic. ---
**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 15, 2019, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/174 "2019-01-15T23:06:51Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The Petrified Forest is in Arizona. > > There are some country people that are mean, but I don’t believe that it is a majority. I’d rather think of them as ignorant than stupid. Is your point that they are racist? I believe some of them don’t want to be around some minorities, but I don’t think they want to see minorities suffer. Some of course, are real assholes. Their ignorance is racism, and their racism is ignorance. Their cultural chauvinism is ignorance and their ignorance is chauvinism. At the end of the day, these people should know better than to vote for Steve King and Donald Trump. Yet, they keep doing it. When I read articles about farmers losing their family-owned farms, I say “Fuck 'em.” They gave us Trump. They’re giving us a shutdown that the rest of us didn’t ask for. They’re giving us a racist con-artist we don’t want and don’t know. They’re doing it because they believe in the supremacy of their culture and value system. That kind of mentality is a clear and present danger to all those who value inclusion and a stable egalitarian society. They can kiss my ass and go to hell. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/175 "2019-01-15T23:07:42Z")
Voters will conveniently forget who was driving the bus and put yet another incompetent boob in the White House. The previous Republican to hold that office is my cite. ---
**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 15, 2019, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/176 "2019-01-15T23:10:26Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Voters will conveniently forget who was driving the bus and put yet another incompetent boob in the White House. > > The previous Republican to hold that office is my cite. That was because we weren’t allowed to feel the full force of the recession. Trump will be Herbert Hoover. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/177 "2019-01-15T23:13:14Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Those are the racist ones. AKA: Republicans ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/178 "2019-01-15T23:14:13Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The Petrified Forest is in Arizona. On the off chance that you’re really this stupid, he was talking about coal. Feel free to Poe me - it would make me feel marginally better about the universe as a whole. Do try to be convincing, though. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/179 "2019-01-15T23:42:23Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > \*Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a longlimbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counseled one and all, and everyone said, “Amen.” > > Major Major’s father was an outspoken champion of economy in government, provided it did not interfere with the sacred duty of government to pay farmers as much as they could get for all the alfalfa they produced that no one else wanted or for not producing any alfalfa at all. He was a proud and independent man who was opposed to unemployment insurance and never hesitated to whine, whimper, wheedle and extort for as much as he could get from whomever he could.\* OMG my father was a _Catch-22_ character. Now how do I shake my Yossarian complex? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577/180 "2019-01-15T23:44:10Z")
Join the Republican Party and adopt a Milo Minderbinder complex. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-shutdown/827577.md?page=10)