Whether or not Republicans could have funded border security Before is an interesting diversion.
Trump actually pushed hard for border security & wall funding the last time the govt was facing a shutdown, and he was convinced to sign a clean CR with the promise that border security would be addressed. It wasn’t.
So this time he has held fast. He is absolutely responsible for holding firm for a bill that has what he wants in it. He could sign a bill today without Wall funding and re-open the government.
Democrats in the House could also pass a bill today with $5.7b in Wall funding and the government would be open again in an hour. You have not disputed this as it’s indisputable.
Both sides are choosing to keep the government shut down.
Tomorrow at 3pm Trump will present yet another compromise proposal. He has at least been standing ready to negotiate this entire time, even through Christmas. He has said what he wants, as it’s a promise he made when he was running for election, and he is obviously willing to trade a lot for it. We’ll see tomorrow what his latest proposal is, and if and when Democrats will come to the table.
A rational negotiator, when the other side says “this is what I need to have” figures out what they need in return. If border fencing is “immoral” or “racist” then we have a lot of walls we better get bulldozing.
At worst Trump is saying he wants to waste $6b dollars on ineffective border measures. Well, by denying that appropriation, House Democrats have burned much, much more than $6 billion by now.
There are things you can ask for that cannot be bartered. He could be asking for a Constitutional Amendment of some sort. He could be asking for certain politicians to resign. He could be asking for actual racist or immoral things.
He’s asking for a border security appropriation to build 230 miles of wall in addition to the 690 miles that already exist. He wants to increase the border fencing by 1/3rd. He’s demanding this because a large number of people voted for him because he said he would do it.
This is something that can be traded for in a functioning democracy. I believe Democrats should put something commensurate on the table that they’re willing to trade for $6b in wall funding.
For example, the next Supreme Court nomination. If Ginsburg knew that Dems could fill her spot, perhaps she would be ready to retire. I think Trump would want $25b in Wall funding in return for that, but it’s within the realm of possibility. I think Dems need to get fucking creative and get to work on solving this, versus assuming a fake BuzzFeed scoop is going to solve their problem for them, or continue to play the optics as if the shutdown is good for Dems.
Acting like Trump is a rational negotiator is delusional. Why should the Dems ever bother listening to his demands when last time they negotiated, he backed out of the deal? And you're objectively wrong, again, on it being a clean CR.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Appropriations_...
I don’t think either side is a particularly good faith negotiator, but it’s totally beside the original point I made which you refuse to debate while continuously smoke screening with side shows.
You refuse to admit that the way the Senate has done legislative business for its entire history is at odds with your “despite a Republican majority” rhetoric. A Replublican majority is not sufficient to stop a Democratic philibuster in the Senate. That’s how the Senate works. If one party with at least 40 seats decides to filibuster, then they are responsible for the bill not passing. That is exactly how it has always worked in the Senate and any good faith debater would accept that the party filibustering is the party responsible for stopping the bill from going to the President’s desk, in that case, causing a shutdown.
I mean, if you blame Republicans for the Jan 2018 shutdown where Senate democrats were damanding a permanent DACA fix, and then relented, you know even the NYT disagrees with you [1];
Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/us/politics/congress-vote...
You're effectively saying that Republicans holding the government hostage instead of employing the nuclear option in the past is far less damaging to the country than if they had lifted the parliamentary procedures. This is also ignoring the fact that there has been bipartisan clean CRs which have been outright denied by the Senate.
Can you explain why it would've been more damaging to the country than the current shutdown? I would like an actual explanation.