GOP Senator Admits Trump Blocked Deal To End Shutdown For Stunning Reason

He's regularly accused of being smart. There simply isn't much evidence that the accusations have merit. There is a bevy of evidence that he is intellectually incurious and extremely confident... So, in short, he's quite stupid.

At least Forest Gump knew what love was...

I hate to say it, but the man is smart in his own warped way. He has been the leader of the "free" world and/or nearly as important for a decade now. He has consistently shown a complete disregard for law, the general human population, the planet, and any future that exists beyond his lifetime. Yet somehow, the man continues to do whatever the hell he wants. I hate it, but he clearly knows how to manipulate and get his way. Is it a longterm strategy, no, but it works and 30% of the US is completely supportive. --- Just to be clear, I hate this timeline.

It's always been that way. Even in the first term, the people around him would heavily filter the news he saw so that it was always positive toward him. They've always been too afraid to tell him any bad news.

As people have pointed out to me, I think they are also planning for selective enforcement. Even without that, just throwing a giant wrench into the election process late into this late is enough for them to cause chaos and then use that chaos as an excuse for endless investigations, calls of fraud and impropriety, or just trying to call the whole thing off.

Just from the text (and not the subtext), it is a poll tax that doesn't need to be paid by passport holders, and is doubled for married women who changed their names. That means it least affects: High wage-earners who can pay the poll tax Women who, despite being married, still have their maiden names Coastal and border citizens who have a reason to use a passport on a regular enough basis People with enough free time to go get a passport made So. That's... Rich men and women, liberal women (conservative women change their names at higher rates), white collar workers, and literal coastal elites. Oh, and it fucks the military, of course. I'm sure they are fine with not being able to vote in the country they are fighting for. Yes, it hurts trans people and immigrants, sure, but that's a relatively small number of voters. If it wasn't for the implicit use of ICE to target democrats and the federalization of state voting procedures into the hands of bad actors, you could rightly call this an anti-*Republican* bill.

Without social safety nets being threatened Trump has no leverage to get the Democrats to agree. If Trump can’t threaten people he has no idea how to actually negotiate.

He isn't lying. He thinks that whatever he believes must also be what America believes. He believes the shutdown is caused by democrats, so everyone else must too. Narcissism on a national scale.

ICE harassing people in airports will probably be a good way to make their party look even worse. Most people in airports are middle class business travelers who are pretty sheltered from ICE and the policies of the current administration. It's probably unwise for Republicans to throw it in their face and make them aware of the issues.

Did she go to work today? Are ICE agents at her airport yet? At the sites they went to today they are quite literally just standing around doing nothing. I don’t see how she can see if for her own eyes and still not believe they won’t help? Scratch that, I can believe it, MAGA does that all the time…

I hope you keep your values in mind and talk with your wife about things.

They are idiots. My conservative family in Oklahoma not only blames the shutdown on the Democrats but also blame the Iran War on them. Their reasoning is the democrats should have attacked them sooner so Trump wouldn’t have to. I thought they were coming around a few months back but they fell right back in line

It sadly was a capitulation, but they did “talk about it later”. To which, the republicans immediately shot the bill down in obvious fashion.

Well that and releasing funding for food stamps…

I wished we lived in a representative democracy, where I had the option to vote for someone that representated my views

If they can keep people busy and confused arguing about whether it was a false flag or not, they can push through whatever illegal policy changes they want and not get enough resistance to stop it. That's been their MO for years.

It wouldn't be true false flag, like from a 90s espionage movie.  It would be a modern post-truth false flag, where hipocracy is the true power being exerted.  Rember, Jan 6th was actually Antifa, but Trump also pardoned all of them.

"While usage varies by demographic, about 40% of American adults with a college degree report using the platform, compared to 15% with a high school diploma or less." "As of 2025, approximately 37.9% to 44% of American adults aged 25 and older hold a bachelor's degree or higher. When including associate degrees and postsecondary certificates, nearly 49.6% of U.S. adults have attained some form of higher education, representing over 100 million people." im not great at math but im pretty sure more than 5% of americans are on reddit.

reddit is like the 10th most popular social media site.

That's presuming this requirement for voting will be equally enforced in rural areas, or will they get a pass because "they know him"? They are already using this logic for "more secure elections" to justify eliminating cross-county voting in TX. It's more "secure" because it's "more local"... which just translates to poll workers getting to pick and choose who they find "suspicous".

100% They plan on only enforcing it in urban areas of blue/ swing states.

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t there something in the act that allows multitudes of votes to be thrown out en masse if it seems “questionable”? I think the danger is to disenfranchise entire blue districts but accept all the red votes that come in. I hope I’m wrong but I thought I had read that or seen it discussed recently.

And yet they are also "america's greatest enemy". Just waiting for them to orchestrate Kristallnacht against the dems, it seems inevitable at this point

This is really the problem in the United States since the beginning. We needed equal representation for everyone. It should not be an issue to add more representatives and more senators based on population.

Also the apparent deal that’s being negotiated where they’re going to try and push SAVE off onto a future budget reconciliation bill sounds like Thune pulling a fast one on Trump. They know they can’t put most (if not nearly all) of SAVE into a budget bill that passes the Byrd Rule, but it’s enough to at least get Trump to sign on reopening the government.

Fingers crossed it’s sooner. 

It is a huge disservice when people say Trump is just going to declare himself president for life, cancel elections, etc. Don't concede anything, when you do you become part of the problem.

Do you think JD Vance will certify electoral votes for a Democrat?

Because they are bots who wanna see America in a civil war.

I don't think being prepared for things he's repeatedly talked about is normalizing it. No more than warning people of Project 2025 normalized it. 

I’ll assume when you ask “why” it’s not just a rhetorical device but a legitimate curiosity so I’ll answer in that spirit. Because “it’s wrong and it’s illegal” has stopped him precisely 0.0 times through all the heinous and outlandish shit he’s done. It’s been a non-stop exhausting parade of things that any professor of law or US History would have laughed at you for suggesting before 2015. I’ve been in the position you’re in right now….5 years ago. Of being like “dude stop being so pessimistic and defeatist, he might have done X but there’s no way he’ll get away with Y.” He always gets away with Y no matter how insane it is. Every time. It’s been relentless and mind boggling for any sane intelligent individual paying attention. It breaks the brain a little. So while I’ve still got a little core of hope and optimism inside me (because I’ll go insane if I don’t) it’s hard to look at the situation and say “yeah it’ll definitely be ok” because it has very repeatedly NOT been ok, and this doesn’t seem to have any simple practical distinction from the other evil shit he’s done. In other words there doesn’t seem to be any obvious guardrail in place that didn’t seem to be in place for the decade of other stuff. That’s why. Not because I want to be.

They're trying. If the SAVE act succeeds, they're in.