Jersey Girl wrote:EA what, in your view, is the difference between this current shut down and all the other shutdowns that Cam posted on that chart?
Why is taking a stand now of critical importance?
Questions for anyone, not just EA.
The dynamics. In every shutdown before this one, the move was a form of Russian Roulette where public outrage was the bullet. Whomever the bullet went off on lost, and everyone knew this. So once the outrage began to build and the target emerge there was nothing but more pain to be gained by continuing it.
This process began back before the shutdown happened when Trump initially talked about it, realized it was not a popular position and was going to back the extension bill that would have postponed the debate until February, but then turtled up when his aggressive, irrational base went after him and his ego in ways that cut him deep enough he apparently doesn't care about anything else. Watch Game of Thrones? His base led by Ann Coulter turned him into Reek, where he would carefully shave Ann Coulter with a razor while she mocked his having had his dick cut off.
This isn't like anything we've seen because the mechanisms that typically end shutdowns were fully in effect before it actually began. So what is Trump playing for? It's a game of chicken now where one side has gouged its own eyes out...so of course people like Cam and I guess maybe you are begging the other driver to pull away before the baby carriage between the two cars gets crushed because that is how the person who gouged out their eyes played it. Like this will be the last time he does it once he realizes if he hurts Americans then he can get what he wants? Uh, I thought you were from Jersey. Anyway it needs to be understood the Republicans and Democrats of Congress can end this, there is a third party involved (Senate Republicans) who aren't immune to the typical mechanisms of ending a shutdown who aren't engaging precisely because they aren't being forced to so they aren't feeling the pain, but once they start feeling the pain and being told they are as much to blame as Trump when they refuse to do anything but give a, "whatchugunnado?" things will begin to move in the direction of resolution.
Cam's perspective is precisely what Stephen Miller is counting on. Oh, and you should get to know more about Stephen Miller if you want to understand what makes this different. You have an anti-immigration ideologue behind the scenes about as far removed from the pain being caused as could be yanking on Trump's chain making him yelp out "National Emergency!" because he's a damned nut. It's actually a mystery why we don't talk more about the nutjobs in the White House in the same way we talked about Karl Rove or Cheney or the other players in GWB's White House. We should.