FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Tuesday's election should have been a wake-up call for Republicans. Instead, the administration is responding the only way it knows how: by causing more misery for millions of Americans...
On Wednesday, Donald Trump finally seemed to wake up. Republicans everywhere were devastated in the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia to the races in Georgia and Pennsylvania. The president told Senate Republicans that the government shutdown was “worse for us than for them,” meaning Democrats, and that they were in danger of being a “dead party” if they didn’t intervene in the filibuster to reopen the government.
Trump is right: the shutdown has been a political disaster for Republicans, who are taking most of the blame in public opinion polls. But Senate Republicans won’t engage in a filibuster, at least not now, and probably never. At the same time, their bargaining position has just been weakened by an electoral defeat. So the administration is now desperate to try anything to turn things around.
Here’s how it’s going so far: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, not long after Trump finished scolding his Republican colleagues, announced that he would order 40 of the country’s busiest airports to begin canceling flights, thousands of them, starting Friday. The former Real World cast member insists the move is necessary to “relieve the pressure” on air traffic controllers, who have been working without pay during the shutdown. But, as The New York Times reported, flight disruptions “have been relatively benign” this week after delays over Halloween weekend. Duffy warned of “massive chaos” earlier this week, and now he’s doing just that, just as we enter the busiest travel season of the year.
It’s a revealing move. This administration can only think in political terms. Trump and his minions are not concerned with the human costs of the shutdown, only with ways to increase political pressure. This is consistent with how Trump operates in general. As we’ve seen in so many ways, from tariffs to DOGE to ICE, he knows only how to destroy things, whether they be federal agencies, American businesses, or livelihoods. So in the face of a painful and devastating shutdown, the administration responds with even more pain and destruction.
If Duffy’s goal is to increase pressure on Democrats to vote to reopen the government without winning any of the concessions they are demanding, namely the return of Covid-era Obamacare subsidies that expire at the end of the year, it’s hard to see how he can succeed. Voters have consistently blamed Republicans for the shutdown since it began more than a month ago, and that’s not going to change.
Why would the increased chaos and suffering caused by the government shutdown do anything to change an environment that already favors Democrats politically?
Instead, it is just the latest example of a long-standing approach to government from the right. Near the end of Trump’s first term, the president and his party shut down the government for more than a month in a futile attempt to pressure Democrats to provide more funding for a border wall, increasing suffering in the hope of achieving a political goal whose utility was largely symbolic. It didn’t work then because it never works. But that’s all Republicans really have to offer.
In the case of flight cancellations, Duffy and others in the Trump administration likely believe that a worsening shutdown will force Democrats to back down, for one simple reason: Democrats are the only ones truly interested in functioning government and minimizing the pain and misery of Americans. As with the expiration of SNAP benefits that are causing millions of families to flood food banks, Republicans are hoping that Democrats will come to the table and abandon their demands solely for their solemn duty to keep the government functioning, even if it is run by people who look down on most of the country, or worse.
Whether in the White House or outside it, Democrats have often succumbed to this kind of hostage-taking. During a number of previous government shutdowns, they negotiated in good faith with a Republican Party that was off the rails long before Trump came on the scene. In those cases, Democrats have almost always negotiated against themselves, giving up on demands and doing little with their political clout, in part because they were the only people who were concerned about the damage caused by a government shutdown.
Even now, one could argue that the Democratic Party hasn’t done enough with a politically favorable situation. Voters really hate Trump now for failing to lower prices, for terrorizing communities with his masked Gestapo, and much more. His disapproval rating in a CNN poll this week hit a record 62 percent, one point higher than the same poll conducted immediately after the January 6 uprising.
Democrats could have used this political climate to oppose Trump’s tariffs, which are fueling inflation, or to limit Trump’s deportation machine. But Democrats have stuck to their current negotiating position, insisting they will open the government only for the low price of restoring subsidies that have been in place for years.
After Tuesday's results, which could be a preview of a blue wave that will hit within a year, Democrats should feel safe sitting back and waiting for Republicans to give up for once.
About 20 million Americans will thank those who have stood firm and perhaps reward them next fall. /Adapted from New Republic/
Partite e majta shkaterrojne ekonomikisht popujt dhe: se bashku me globalizmin(krijese e tyre) shkaterrimin moral. Sa I perket Trump, le te presim e te shohim. Eshte shpejt.