So how do we turn this into a drinking game

Trump bitches about the shutdown under Obama -> 1 shot.

Its the democrats fault when it takes 60 votes to pass the budget and the republicans only hold 51 votes, yes.
The republicans do not hold a supermajority and are powerless to stop democrats from shutting down the government on a whim, save anything short of the nuclear option



The democrats also rejected the offer of kicking the can down the road a week to give more time to negotiate.
The republicans want X, the democrats want Y, but the democrats are the ones holding Z hostage for it.



Why would republicans ever agree to a one-sided bargain where democrats get something and republicans don't, despite having the voters mandate?
If the only thing being offered to the republicans is the government staying open, then thats hostage negotiation.

In terms of the raw logic of the game theory involved, its clearly the democrat's 'fault' that the government is shutting down. But the democrats have at least some leverage in that the average joe isn't capable of navigating the nuance to figure that out.

holy mother of hackery, you can't have your cake and eat it too. IF republicans owned the fact that THEY don't care about dreamers and sick children (remember, it was republicans who blocked CHIP funding so they could hold it hostage in budget negotiations to get all their ridiculous items passed), if they publicly admitted that, THEN you'd have a point. but crying crocodile tears on television, pretending like they actually cared about these issues AND claiming it was the democrats fault this couldn't be resolved is pure political bullshittery and you know it.

speaks for itself that you clearly see it that way yourself, characterising CHIP and DACA as things only democrats care about and passing those in clean bills would mean republicans get "nothing" in return - so much for the crocodile tears and republican claims they actually cared about these issues, haha...
so your blame percentages make zero sense, it's quite the opposite actually...

Because that's how negotiating works. What you are currently describing is the following:

1. You start a negotiating with person X, and propose "deal 1" in which you get everything and person X gets absolutely nothing.
2. Person X trips shit, and says that he wants his demands met.
3. Person X proposes "deal 2", which equals "deal 1" plus some of the stuff that person X wants.
4. You trip shit, because you feel like "deal 2" concedes everything to person X and nothing to yourself.

Step 4 is the fallacy. The deal in its entirety is still a compromise that's beneficial to both parties. If you didn't want steps 2 and 3 to happen, you should have made "deal 1" a deal that was beneficial to both parties in the first place.

The Democrats refusing extra time should not be something they get blamed for. The deadline of a deal is always leverage for the party with extra demands; if they don't lose that leverage they flush all their credibility down the drain. The reason why the Democrats are holding Z hostage and the Republicans aren't, is because the Republicans already get what they want in the present proposition.

This post was edited by Leevee on Jan 20 2018 08:51am

Y'all motherfuckers need the polder model.

Rofl maybe thats how negotiating works in France in 1940, but thats not how negotiating works in the real world
The republicans said they won't do DACA without immigration reform/wall. The democrats said they won't do immigration reform without DACA. They failed to find common ground in time for the deadline.
Then the republicans offered up a temporary funding measure that gave neither DACA nor the wall, just gave a few extra weeks to negotiate, and 95% of republicans voted for it, 95% of democrats voted against it.

It wouldn't be "negotiating" if Republicans went to the table and said "Okay we surrender, you can have DACA, CHIP and everything else you wanted, and then we'll sulk in a corner now that we've given you all our leverage for free"



Of course it should be. The democrats and republicans both have entrenched positions, but only the democrats are holding the government hostage, and only democrats are forcing the shutdown.
When the democrats are refusing to keep the government open, of course they should get blamed for the shutdown. Thats just simple logic
You can argue about whether the democrats are justified or whether its in their self interest or gives them leverage or whatever, but the fact is, they own this shutdown.

So happy America is being made great again.

The Art of The Deal master will bail us out don't worry. Most stable super genius on this side of the Atlantic.

This post was edited by sir_lance_bb on Jan 20 2018 09:00am

but i thought republicans wanted that as well? they publicly claimed THEY were the ones caring about dreamers and sick children (despite blocking the funding and holding it hostage) - so how would they get "nothing" if those issues were resolved in clean bills? the mental gymnastics are deserving of olympic medals really...

Anyone else bored to death watching this lack of bipartisanship play out year after year?

This is what you deserve America... start electing moderates if you want the government to work.