Whose fault is the government shutdown?

“Government shutdown” is a misleading term (about a previous shutdown, but still applies).

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Immature and petty leaders and immature and petty voter-supporters of them.

trump, more than anyone. On FB someone commented that 5 billion is a lot of money for a binky.

The people who voted for Trump.

One could certainly make the case that it’s the Democratic Party establishment’s failure to keep to their populist rhetoric and rigging of the primary that created apathy and discontent among their voters which enabled Trump to become elected, which, in-turn, eventually lead to the shutdown.

But no mater how you parse out the chain of causality, there’s no avoiding the last link in that chain being Trump.

Trump is president, only he can sign the budget package. What happened to the sign Harry S Truman kept on his desk that said “The buck stops here”. Trump is an expert at passing the buck.

IF you paid attention, trump laughed after the midterms saying he was glad that the dems were taking control because it meant that he could blame them for EVERYTHING that went wrong whether it was their fault or not. I see this as his first attempt to feel that he’s successfully blaming them. IF they can’t put him in check, they don’t deserve to be returned to power in 2020. I’m just praying that there will be a third party Hail Mary candidate!!!

I can’t vote for trump & I can’r vote for hillary; so, I hope that a third party will give us a preferred option!!!

@LadyMarissa So if Hillary were running against Trump again, and your vote for a third party made the difference between Hillary and Trump, who would you vote for?

I’d ef up like I did last time!!! I vote for the person…NOT the party. I just cannot bring myself to vote for either trump or hillary…BOTH are NOT worthy of my vote!!!

IF any third party gives us a decent option, maybe we will no longer be a 2 party country…I like the idea of a mystery upset!!!

Another appealing option would be the reps dump trump & the dems dump hillary & BOTH parties give us somebody WORTH voting for!!!

I really don’t think Hillary will run again. But if she does, I hope the same thing doesn’t happen again. People voting for a 3rd party, or person, that can’t possibly win, so the win goes to trump

People talk about “voting their conscience” when they vote the third party, but really, they’re voting their ego. “Conscience” would seem to indicate that you vote for the person who will do the most good for the greatest number of people, and that person will not be one who cannot get elected.

I can’t argue either point. I feel it is up to the prevailing parties to provide quality candidates…NOT the crap they’ve been coming up with!!! Had I voted for hillary, my vote still would have been wasted. She won the popular vote, but the reps had figured out how to override the popular vote with the electoral points. There was NO way she was going to win even IF there was NO 3rd party!!!

Trump said he was going to shut down thje government ( doesn’t bother him) until the Dem’s agree to 8 Billion dollars for the WALL (made be shell companies he and Donnie Jr are running ! ! )

DUH !

@LadyMarissa If I were you I’d tone it down and apologize for being part of the reason we have Trump now…or at least be quiet about it. Hillary was not my first choice either but she would have made a competent president Rightous people like you and nonvoters only rightously fucked up this country. That is nothing to brag about and there is no justification you can offer for it.

@Dutchess_lll: “If I were you I’d tone it down and apologize for being part of the reason we have Trump now”

Stop. Just stop. If you want to spark yet another discussion about the 2016 election, do it. But for christ’s sake – don’t keep perpetuating these myths and harmful ideas about it.

Myth ? ? ? @notnotnotnot

Trump was elected in part by people not voting (Hillary will win, I don’t need to go out and vote) and PEOPLE VOTING for a third party candidate.

Hell, I voted…I just didn’t vote the way any of you wanted me to!!! IF you all need somebody to blame, go ahead. I see the problem as being MUCH BIGGER than my choosing to vote 3rd party!!! I went to bed that night hearing that I would wake up with hillary running the country. I cried when I awoke & heard it was trump. Put the blame where it belongs…the dems should have had a BETTER candidate & then there would NOT have been an issue!!!

@Dutchess_lll, go ahead & wait on that apology…Hell will freeze over before you hear it!!!

^^^^ Calm down. It’s not that big of a deal. I don’t care if you apolgize or not. It was just something to consider.

@notnotnot it’s not a myth. The reason I bring it up is that she said she’d do it again. I was hoping she’d understand how self defeating that is, how fecking dangerous that behavior was in this situation, but I guess there is no getting through to some people.

^ You tell me to shut up & apologize & then you want me to calm down??? Spend your time telling the dem party to come up with a quality candidate. IF they had, I’d have voted for them!!!

I didn’t tell you to shut up. I suggested that an apology was more aporopriate than bragging about your decision, which helped lead the country into this God forsaken mess.

I voted, I voted AGAINST trump & I refuse to accept the blame that the dems gave me NOBODY for whom I could trust to vote!!!

I wasn’t bragging. I was TELLING the dems, give me the same options, you’re going to get the same results!!! With the 2016 election, I felr like I had been put in a room & told I was going to be raped but I was going to get the pleasutre of choosing WHO was going to rape me before I got to leave the room.

With the way you enjoy bullying others, I bet you’re a closet trump voter!!!

Can you even explain what problem you had with Hillary, or is it just some vague, nebulous distrust?
I didn’t care for her but I can’t tell you why really. I guess I allowed all the unfounded rumors influence me.
But in the end both Bernie Sanders and the Obamas backed her and that was good enough for me. They know a hell of a lot more than I do, about all of it and I trusted them. Still do.

Interesting question as to who will blink first. Looking at the parts of the government affected, the only one Trump is likely to care about is Homeland Security. If it became necessary, Congress could provide emergency funding for the department, which Trump would no doubt approve.

It looks like Trump is in a pretty good position.

The POTUS and Congress. They are the ones that have the responsibility of operating our nation’s government and they are dysfunctional.

Ultimately, everyone in Washington. However, as Trump declared that he was personally responsible (before changing his tune,) I am comfortable blaming him.

These shutdowns always infuriate me. If the manager of a McDonald’s couldn’t keep the store open, they’d be fired. Apparently, our government is held to lower standards…

Trumps.

Hey @Lightlyseared!

@LadyMarissa I’m with @Dutchess_III—the way you are writing you seem very amped up. You did the same thing to me on another Q where I felt like you were trying to BEAT ME DOWN. Reread your posts, all the CAPITALIZATION you use, and so many exclamation marks, translates to ANGER and SHOUTING!!

Facts are facts. People voting third party, or not voting in the most recent presidential election helped give the ejection to Trump, because there wasn’t a third party candidate in sight who had a chance. If maybe someone extremely popular had run then maybe you could argue it was worth the risk this election.

Maybe you’re in a very red or very blue state so you feel your vote doesn’t matter much, but if you are in a swing state your vote matters very much. More and more states seem to be becoming swing states. Plus, every vote counts because it tells the country where the mind of citizenry is, which affects the message in the messaging and the mindset of the country. What if Hillary had won the popular vote by 30 million not 3 million?

The most important vote to get the person you want is the primary. The time to vote your conscience is the primaries. If the person you wanted didn’t win the primary, or if no candidate was there that you liked, then when it comes time to vote for the big winner, you (and others) need to deal with the reality of the situation. You can’t be a pie in the sky idealist, or hold a grudge, that’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. I know quite a few people who wanted Bernie who didn’t vote for him in the primary, I think that was a mistake. I was always a Hillary supporter, but I encouraged my friends and family to vote for Bernie in the primary if they believed in him, and a lot of them didn’t. I encouraged my Republican friends to vote their conscience in the primaries too, most of them liked Cruz, who I couldn’t stand.

The next presidential election I predict every single vote will count in every state. I think it will be very hard to predict who people will vote for.

I don’t think, in all of history, there has ever been a 3rd party candidate who won.

In researching my statement to make sure it’s true, I came across this “The title for highest share of votes ever earned by a third-party candidate in American history is still held by Theodore Roosevelt during the election of 1912. ... Roosevelt and Taft ended up splitting the Republican vote, which led to an easy victory by Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson. May 31, 2018”. Roosevelt still didn’t win, though.
This is exactly what happened in the 2016 election when millions of voters threw away their votes by voting 3rd party, write in, or abstaining.

Entitled Democrats and their blaming 3rd party voters. Get over yourselves. I’m with you @LadyMarissa. The Dems have no one to blame but themselves.

Not if they voted for Hillary. We’d be a normal country with a normal government, instead of the laughing stock of the world, as we dismantle the EPA, do away with National Park protections and endangered species protection. We might be grumbling that we don’t like our president, like we did with Bush, but we wouldn’t be a colossal, quivering wreck that we are today.

@Stache I’m not trying to blame anyone. I’m saying, anyone who voted for a third party candidate, or who didn’t vote, shouldn’t be blaming Democrats that Trump is in office. Seriously, who is blaming who?

@JLeslie So you are okay with how the Dems played dirty during the primaries but Russia can’t be forgiven? People in our own country rigged the primaries and we’re supposed to let that slide? The Dems lifted Trump up thinking he would never win. They, and the media, made it impossible for Bernie to have a chance even though every poll had him beating Trump. The Dems are responsible for their own demise. Several people here keep blaming the 3rd party voters. It’s bs.

Anyway, this is all off topic. I’m done here.

Um, I just said I’m not ok with the blame game. I never said I was ok with any of what you mentioned.

I said, if someone doesn’t vote to keep a certain candidate out, there is more chance that candidate will get in. That doesn’t mean the Democrats didn’t do some crappy things. Both sides do crappy things. If you believe the vote is reasonably fairly counted, regardless of what propaganda and manipulation was being done, then that’s what I am talking about.

The vote is what gets people elected.

You know that expression “if you don’t vote don’t complain.” Again, we have to deal with the reality of how our two party system works.

I don’t think the dems propped Trump up. I do think they were very unfair to some of the Republican candidates. The media was all over Trump the whole time.

“Anyway, this is all off topic. I’m done here.”
He’s taking his basketball and going home.

^ I wonder if anyone else has ever done that before?....hmmm…

You don’t even know how to play basket ball so why do you even have one? How about taking your fiddle and going home @Caravanfan?

@Dutchess_III I don’t play the fiddle. And I don’t know how to play basketball. I do know how to fence, though.

I didn’t think you played basket ball!

@Dutchess_III No, that involves running.

@JLeslie My first response was not directed towards you. Quit taking everything personal. Interesting side bit though. You wrote 3 paragraphs about how you don’t play the blame game.~

@Caravanfan I was showing respect towards your question. If you want to be an ass I’m all game.