Classic fascism: the enemy is both weak and strong.

I find this argument to be disingenuous because the truth is that the Republicans don't have enough control to pass an appropriation bill without Democrat consent.

Telling the true story makes the Republicans look just as bad, though. The things that the Democrats are demanding are things that are obviously good and very popular. Like not making the US healthcare system even worse.

So, why distort the truth when the truth is already in the Democrats' favor in this case?

EDIT: Since there seems to be a lot of confusion on this point, I'll try to explain the relevant US senate rules. The reason why Republicans don't have full control of the senate is because for most types of legislation, they need 60 votes to invoke cloture, forcing a vote (at which point only a simple majority is needed to pass the bill).

There are limited exceptions to that, including budget reconciliation bills that modify the current budget. The "Big Beautiful Bill" that they passed earlier was such a budget reconciliation bill, so it was only allowed to do things that modify the budget (some provisions they tried to include were struck down for not meeting that standard and therefore requiring 60 vote cloture).

The bill they are trying to pass now is an appropriations bill that actually funds the government, which is not an exception to the cloture rule. Their version of the bill is considered a "clean" continuing resolution because it continues funding with no modifications, but they have already modified the funding earlier with the BBB without getting Democrat approval, so the Democrats rightly don't approve of continuing with that budget. The Democrats want Republicans to negotiate with them like they are supposed to, and to make concessions primarily on healthcare funding (which the BBB drastically cut).

The Democrats want to

1. Extend healthcare subsidies that were put into place during the pandemic. Allowing these to expire would raise everyone's monthly healthcare premium.

2. Challenge new restrictions introduced in the "big, beautiful bill" which seeks to exclude able bodied "working age" individuals from Medicaid benefits. 12 million low income individuals are on track to lose coverage.

Sidebar: John Oliver has covered this but.. the way this system works is you lose coverage by default and then have to submit paperwork monthly to prove you are working. Its been shown time and time again that state governments do not have the administrative capacity to handle that amount of documentation so even if you are eligible you will likely spend most of your time uninsured and in administrative limbo.

3. Challenge immigration enrollment restrictions that aim to prevent immigrants from accessing Medicaid benefits (everyone who works in the US [including immigrants] pay into Medicaid).

Republicans don't want to include those provisions in the budget. Instead they want to talk about them later. We all know what that means.

Vote in the midterms and FUCKING VOTE IN THE PRIMARIES.

Whether you like it or not, FPTP makes 3rd parties mathematically unviable in general elections.

If you want to move the Democrat party leftward (which is, politically, the only option now), the only way to do that is to vote for progressives in the primaries. They do exist. Research them in your state, lobby and volunteer for them, and get them in the primaries. Then show up for them.

If we’d been doing this instead of protest voting in the generals or abstaining, we wouldn’t be having to cope with a weakened and corporate Dem party. Shockingly, you actually do have the power to move things if you get involved.

With his recent declaration of war on the left and his ILLEGAL withholding of Congressionally approved funds to only blue states, it's wild to realize that we are actually experiencing a treasonous president (and party) and this cuck of a country isn't doing a fucking thing about it.

To live your whole life hearing some "home of the free, land of the brave" bullshit, just to find out that it was exactly that. Bullshit.

It worked out PERFECTLY for the GOP.

They can refuse to swear in the new democrat Adelita Grijalv into the house for the 218th vote to release the epstein files that Johnson and Trump are ALL over.

It also gives them a new way to fire thousands of more federal "left leaning" employees.

It also gives them optics with their voter base that democrats hate america and want people to suffer, and they eat it up.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country who are based in reality know this is 100% republicans fault and a way to delay the epstien files and hurt the american public even more. At the same time calling for war on american citizens who don't bow down to the dictator.

Republicans have always loved blaming the minority for their problems, nothing new there.

Democrats better hold the line on this front. Let the GOP own the shutdown for the cuts they want.

Well when your voters are dumb as shit, then just saying yep Democrats fault they know their base will accept their word.

We can count on the liberal media to report "both sides" of this situation as usual.

That's how we got here.

Everyday we stray closer to Idiocracy.

Memes and reactionary comments aside, can anyone explain how the shutdown came to be given that all levels of government are currently controlled by a single party? I can't find a reliable explainer

They play buzzword bingo. There's no truth behind anything they say. Problem? Say that phrases "Democrats" "Joe Biden" "Hilary's Email". People don't think about this stuff logically (mostly because their education has been defunded).

Wife beater logic: it's her fault.