General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAt what point in a shutdown do people start talking coup?
I want a constitutional resolution of this shutdown in the worst way, but if the shutdown goes on long enough, thousands of government workers will face evictions, foreclosures, repossessions, prosecutions, and yes, hunger. If Trump and McConnell are seen to be agents of a foreign power intentionally damaging America, arent people are going to start asking, why not?
On edit: Thanks to everybody who responded. Too many to respond to individually. A few people imagined I was rooting for a coup. No way. I'd rather drive my car off a bridge into an ice-covered river. If enough people get scared shitless about the possibility, we might get that constitutional outcome that we (and the whole world) desperately need.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Jesus, people.
uppityperson
(115,681 posts)emulatorloo
(44,274 posts)Tipperary
(6,930 posts)Jeez, the stuff I see here. Smh.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)But very few believe their eyes.
MrGrieves
(315 posts)Huh. Because it isnt possible we are in the middle of one already?
I mean it sure as shit seems like it is at least possible.
Joe941
(2,848 posts)Palisade
(54 posts)If Trump declares a national emergency and gets away with it, what's stopping him from just declaring martial law?
bearsfootball516
(6,378 posts)If "insert event" happens, then what's stopping "insert event from happening"?
Just because one thing happens doesn't mean it leads to something else. People on DU have been predicting Trump is going to declare martial law, start a nuclear war, etc since the day he was inaugurated. It hasn't' happened and isn't going to happen.
manor321
(3,344 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)Trump has covered for them by taking the blame for this. As long as Trump's base sticks with him, the GOP'ers in the Senate will, too.
You would not only need a simple majority in the Senate, you'd need a supermajority of two-thirds in both houses of Congress to override a veto. Why would anyone on the Republicon side stick their neck out on a simple majority vote, knowing full well that you could not get two-thirds on both sides of Congress?
Do you think they will just bow to our moral superiority? Yeah, like they did with Merrick Garland.
emulatorloo
(44,274 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)would require empathy, and they have very little of that.
emulatorloo
(44,274 posts)Joe941
(2,848 posts)You don't hear any talk of us folding. I doubt they fold. Some deal will eventually happen. It might be a long time though.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)They do the right thing, they get primaried out of office.
at140
(6,110 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)Are enough of them going to look in the mirror that morning and say, "I'm tired of being a douchebag," and then do the right thing?
Unless they're offered a compromise, they won't do that. They'd rather lose a general election than to face the shame of losing a primary election, where their political futures are over with permanently.
at140
(6,110 posts)Even republicans might get it by the 45th day!
OK...so I am a fan of numerology..
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)I'm not into numerology, but for people who like that kind of thing, I see where you're coming from.
brush
(53,978 posts)If this continues for much longer I expect that to spread and people will take to the streets.
Joe941
(2,848 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)They laugh at it, while Faux Snooze covers it as domestic terrorism, fortifying the base's convictions that maybe not getting a farm loan as quickly as usual is the price you have to pay to fight the "libruls".
brush
(53,978 posts)at140
(6,110 posts)And I do not see major demonstrations news yet.
brush
(53,978 posts)Chicago, Covington, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and Cincinnati, which is encouraging IMO.
at140
(6,110 posts)Their base does not live in big cities. Now if Podunk City begins to demonstrate against shutdown, it will end immediately.
brush
(53,978 posts)demanding paychecks, media coverage of them, and nervous repugs backing away from trump whose popularity is sinking not just from the shutdown but also from reports of him being a Russian asset.
murielm99
(30,785 posts)Airlines will stop flying. Businesses will be crippled.
It won't matter if people die. But when the rich guy republicans and their businesses start getting hurt, they will dump trump.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)business deals get made by electronic means, and with the videoconferencing abilities afforded over the Internet, they just might realize that they should have switched over to that method years ago. I've known a number of people who fly for business, and after about a year, most of them hated it.
There are plenty of places to get away for a nice vacation by land transportation. And the sharpies all know how to make money whether the market is going up or down.
leftieNanner
(15,206 posts)don't have any money to spend, their businesses will suffer. Unfortunately this will take far too long and create a national financial catastrophe.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)I don't see Trump taking that long, by the middle of 2020, the majority of Americans number wise and in the electoral college, will be praying for Election Day 2020 to get rid of that buffoon. What we have to do is insure that our primary does not become a shit show.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)but it would take many months for it to be a true financial catastrophe. SNAP beneficiaries will run out of resources long before that point. They are the ones that will put pressure on Democratic members of Congress to give Trump something to get their food security back.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The real world is not the place it seems if you spend a lot of time reinforcing your opinions on the Internet.
still_one
(92,526 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)People lost jobs bigtime under Bush Co, businesses closed, the county was dead relative to nearby Alachua County. Lots of empty store fronts. Then President Obama got elected, within a few months, job losses were declining, within three years, new hotels were opening and new businesses were opening. What did the people (mostly republican and some indies) here do? They feel over themselves to vote RMoney/Lyin-Ryan.
Cha
(298,074 posts)HUD kicked out of their homes with no where to go in many cases.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)declares himself, "President for Life". Then, the military will handle it, and it might not turn out so well for everybody.
MineralMan
(146,351 posts)unpaid workers. We don't do those things here any longer.
onenote
(42,847 posts)empedocles
(15,751 posts)There was a real, live coup attempt against FDR. Well financed, an army lined up to march. Marine Smedley Butler made the coup fail.
It was tidly covered up, dismissed by media, and relevant documents sealed for 30 years. Puzzling, even FDR and his cohort kept quiet about it.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)the Business Plot. It was a harebrained and half-baked scheme that had almost zero chance of actually happening, much less being successful.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Republican favored descriptions of the actual plot to overthrow FDR. Actually, testimony on the issue was credibly received by some on the McCormack Committee doing the investigation. In todays dollars, something like $60,000,000 was credibly committed by a powerful cliques of famed named titans.
Lead by Dupont, supported by WR Hearst, JP Morgan, Birdseye, Singer heirs, Prescott Bush, etc. These cliques hated progressive income taxation, shifting the gold standard, and liberal legislation in general. The right had popular political support notably from the Liberty League, Sen. Huey Long and Father Coughlin [radio fame], and other conservative political groups.
Smedley Butler, and FDR himself, were in a centrist political bind, with rw and facist groups on one side, and communists and left wing groups on the other. [A political bind somewhat similar to the relatively honest and straight James Comey bind, with resulting limited political support, which along with FDR's other responsibilities, and the quick release of the plot information accounts for some of the limited plot investigation, development and remedies against the coup attempt].
I have written most of this from memory. A google scan of course, has innumerable cites on the subject. Many of these are mainly interested in various perspectives, without much depth on the actual coup attempt.
To check my memory a did some scanning. One interesting scan was a 196pp Wesleyan honors theses from 2008, which was big picture, relatively recent, balanced, and a bit conventional overcautious, but overall good. I looked in particular for any newer clues of FDR's silence on the issue, but the theses was not that good.
MarcA
(2,195 posts)As is the current shutdown.
ariadne0614
(1,747 posts)Starving liberal institutions by triaging programs on ideological grounds without input from the public isnt a shutdown; its a coup by another name. The media should start calling it one.
https://www.thenation.com/article/its-not-a-government-shutdown-its-a-right-wing-coup/
Buckeyeblue
(5,505 posts)I'm not advocating any particular action, but it's amazing that we just mindlessly take this shit. We really like our houses, cars, eating out...all the things we are afraid will be gone if we make waves.
But a national strike...it would just be interesting to see how the media would cover it and how the politicans would respond.
Honestly, we're all a little too delicate for such an option. At least right now.
BumRushDaShow
(130,043 posts)I'm guessing that you were either not born or were very young in 1981 when such happened, resulting in 11,000 firings by one Ronald Raygun.
Unfortunately the polling then showed the "public" supported the firings.
A 10th anniversary post-firing analysis article - https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1991-08-04-1991216098-story.html
Buckeyeblue
(5,505 posts)I was speaking more in a general sense. The non-government workers. What if the country went on strike.
BumRushDaShow
(130,043 posts)we are far too inter-dependent on each other for goods and services and the very people we are fighting are millionaires and billionaires who couldn't care less, since they have become "global". And if such went on long enough, we'd end up in a European middle-age style feudal system.
Dan
(3,589 posts)Personnel, if they stopped coming to work would end this mess.
Airports would close..... and then, all help would break lose.
End subject...
BumRushDaShow
(130,043 posts)It would be 1981 all over again. Being fired from the federal government means you lose your retirement, and as part of the firing back then, all of those folks were banned for life from returning to the government (although that was later reversed years later).
And no, airports would NOT "close". They didn't close in 1981 when >70% of the air traffic controllers were fired. They just brought in other people to replace them (initially military controllers and older retired controllers). There was no TSA back then or anything like them either.
As it is, TSA IS actually doing something that other workers have done in the past as a protest (like cops or teachers) - call out sick. That can be as just as effective.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,522 posts)hard work, but it just doesn't happen.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)You know, Girard, every 2 years you have a chance for a revolution, takes maybe half an hour. And you're in no danger of you or your loved ones dying, getting mutilated, imprisoned, losing everything you own, and/or waking up to find phones and the internet down, and the military in control of all highways and ready to shoot you down if you tried to leave your neighborhood.
I recommend appreciation and commitment to government of, by and for the people. You really wouldn't really like living in a post-democracy authoritarian state, in your own home, as a homeless refugee allowed to join 100,000 of desperate others in a refugee camp, or in a forced labor camp at best if you were caught talking about coups.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)But, one time when she got upset with an instance of my stubbornness, my Mom called me a special child, and it was not meant as a compliment either.
Many of the people that call for things like street action and revolutions are the very same people who won't vote in a General election or write in or vote third party because their favored primary choice did not win, or they won't vote in midterms because very progressive policy changes were not as radical as what they wanted to see happen. So, I just ignore the fantasies about revolution and instead of raising hell in the streets, I prefer to run a business and bring about things that I think are important.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)People who value democracy vote and certainly aren't willing to throw it away.
I also like your way of supporting what you believe in. Can't do without it.
violetpastille
(1,483 posts)Elegantly stated.
Paladin
(28,287 posts)The more the word is in the daily national dialogue, the more likely it's going to happen. Hell, it's almost as if trump wants it to happen, at this point.
Tipperary
(6,930 posts)Just makes him a martyr.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)In order to get removal by the Senate, Trump would have irrefutable evidence against him and the stuff that he did would have to be clearly horrid, and even then, the Senate likely would not remove him due to republicans. This talk of impeachment is sizzle without the steak talk, when Trump gets impeached, I want him removed by the Senate, otherwise we just as well prepare to organize and remove him through the vote.
anarch
(6,535 posts)But he can't quit, or Putin will release the kompromat (well and his ego won't let him; he's conflicted). I would hope, if it becomes impossible to deny that the fucker is basically a Russian asset, and this is obviously the consensus of public opinion, that enough Repubs might wake the fuck up, and impeachment (and conviction) might happen.
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,603 posts)Remember how pissed off he got when John McCain died? He said he was upset because he wasn't on television because of the coverage of McCain's life and funeral. Wasn't that when he had the WH flag restored to full staff after one day at half staff?
My feeling is that as long as reporters crowd around him at the helicopter and he can watch pundits on all the cable news networks yammer about his ever tweet, IQ45 is in heaven. Why would he change that? Besides, it gives him an excuse to miss all those boring summits, like the one in Davos.
And he gets to play victim, which is his favorite role.
Meanwhile, Melania is trapped within the walls of the WH with a madman. Awww!
Crutchez_CuiBono
(7,725 posts)If injunctions are possible out of them?
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)where the GOP rejects Trump and helps the Dems get rid of him.
I doubt that there are enough GOP with the moral character to do so.
Calista241
(5,586 posts)bearsfootball516
(6,378 posts)"When do people start talking coup"
These threads appear here almost daily and it's absurd.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)but happily they are in the minority.
Tipperary
(6,930 posts)Well said. And so true!
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)People were starving across the country, no revolution. We, as a people, have a dual personality, we are warlike conformist, we will kill in a heartbeat over somethings, but passively eat truckloads of shit in regards to other things. Our government's activity is where the vast majority of Americans become shiteaters.
Yeehah
(4,603 posts)pursues the constitutional process to leave the Union. Would red states support an amendment to allow the "left coast" states to leave? Probably not --- they would lose the tax revenue that comes from those blue states and lose west coast ports. But personally, I'm tired of living in a country that cannot better itself because of an outdated governmental charter. I don't believe small-population states should have the same power as huge population states in the Senate. I also believe the electoral college for presidential elections is anti-democratic. People should have power in the government, not huge swaths of empty land. Also, congresssional districts should be of roughly equal population blocs. I see other countries moving forward and building amazing infrastructure. The US is lost -- wasting half of its money on "defense" when we have the largest atomic arsenal in the world. I just see things getting worse due to the influence of money in elections and government. I saw Citizens United as the last nail in the coffin for this country and lo and behold, a few years later we have imbecile Trump in the White House, and the country is swirling the drain.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)to a blue part was done to live in a more progressive place. The country is so mixed now, we have blue areas surrounded by all red, how do we form a blue country with that dynamic? What would have to happen is the country split in 2 parts, that should give each new country roughly 160 million people (although, when push comes to shove, the fence sitters and even moderately conservative people will run their asses to the blue country, I would expect it to be the larger of the two by a lot). The countries would form around coasts, one all Pacific and some Gulf, the other all Atlantic and some Gulf, the country dividing line would run somewhere up the middle of the country. Once the countries are going their own way, they can inact policies that their citizens won't (although I would expect the fence sitters and moderate conservatives and even some conservatives that are afraid to live in the red country to stir up shit in the blue country in regards to policy - sort of like the conservative American woman that was yelling that Great Britain didn't observe freedom of speech and the First Amendment a couple of weeks ago).
moondust
(20,027 posts)A scenario that I recall imagining might be the only thing that could stop the impending invasion of Iraq.
Banana republic stuff.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,384 posts)"Tanks", Mr President, for the opportunity to serve your agenda. That's the opening prayer for every Cabinet meeting.
"Tanks", Mr President, for allowing me to make a toadying, obsequious, groveling, ass-kissing statement in praise of your excellence!
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,798 posts)2) Neither Trump nor the Republicans are in any hurry to end the shutdown.
3) My guess is that we will start getting targeted funding bills. So the Republicans will agree to fund ATC and TSA to keep the air system running. They will agree to fund USDA so the farmers can plant and meat will continue to be inspected. But when SNAP runs out, or to reopen the National Parks, Smithsonian, Department of Housing, Department of Transportation, etc. there will need to be funding for this wall. Or not. But the Gated cOmmunity Party does not give a fuck whether people can't get food; whether school kids eat lunch; whether rents are subsidized for the poor; or anything regarding healthcare.
AlexSFCA
(6,139 posts)at this time.