this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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Republicans are grappling with public polls showing the public places more blame on them, rather than the Democrats, for the shutdown, even as they argue they have the moral high ground in the shutdown fight.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Republicans stress that they put no partisan poison pills in a GOP-crafted, House-passed stopgap to fund the government through Nov. 21. Democrats in the Senate have repeatedly blocked that bill as they demand that Republicans first negotiate with them on health care issues, particularly on enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expiring at the end of the year.

Poll after poll finds that slightly more Americans think Republicans are to blame for the shutdown than who think Democrats are at fault.

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[–] veroxii@lemmy.world 211 points 4 days ago (2 children)

If you're in government it's your responsibility to keep the government running. In most other countries if the government can't pass a budget then it's a vote of no confidence and we call another election immediately.

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 101 points 4 days ago (7 children)

I think one of America's biggest fuckups was designing a system where elections can only be every four years

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 43 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just add the way Athens dealt with this thousands of years ago. You vote twice for each representative: once to get him into office, and a second time at the end of the term to determine if he can stay or gets banished from the city.

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Banishment should be making them live in Bakersfield. Nobody deserves such a wretched fate, deserved for a politician thought.

[–] krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

No.

The correct answer is Gary, Indiana.

[–] balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 3 days ago

God dammit Jerry

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Some of them could be deported to Russia. They are doing Putins work, so he should pay their pensions.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 37 points 4 days ago (1 children)

For the presidency.

House terms are 2 years, and Senators are 6 years.

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 56 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Lack of term limits fir Supreme Court judges was another big fuckup

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 39 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Even the system of checks and balances were kind of a fuckup if you think about it - the whole system just presumes that most people are acting in good faith and bad faith actors are limited to a few positions or a single branch.

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The system wasn't supposed to be perfect or eternal. The founders explicitly said that they expected each successive generation to essentially rewrite the constitution. It's not their fault that we only made minor tweaks over 250 years.

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

The threshold for passing reform is too damn high. There should've been some mandatory period to make the change happen more often and easily to keep with the times. Now we're stuck with an antiquated system that still mentions slavery in its founding documents and its loopholes are so well known that someone's using it to turn this country into an autocracy.

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't know that the threshold is the problem. I think the problem is that about 35% of humans are complete pieces of shit. I don't know how you account for that effectively. Expecting the rest of society to counter them seems about as reasonable of a solution as you're likely to find and that's essentially what we have now.

[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

the problem is that about 35% of ~~humans~~ US citizens are complete pieces of shit

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Why do you think that's not universal?

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[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 6 points 3 days ago (4 children)

And for a mandated maximum age for politicians

[–] cdf12345@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think term limits would take care of this without v being discriminatory. You can win an office once and a reelection once. It doesn’t matter if you either that office at 25 or 70.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 1 points 2 days ago

How is age discriminatory? We don't debate the minimum age requirement, so what's so bad about an upper one?

I mean I do think someone younger than 35 could easily be a good president.

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (7 children)

While you are at it, add term limits to congress and senate seats as well.

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[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, instead of having a lifetime appointment, or having a specific number of justices, they could just make it so that, at the beginning of the 4 year presidential term, the President gets to nominate a fixed number of Supreme Court justices, who serve for a fixed number of years.

I heard somebody propose that system, and I can't help thinking that it would solve a lot of the problems with our Supreme Court.

There are some laws tied to the lifetime of a person, like appointing certain judges, and copyright law, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that there is always a better solution.

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[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 4 points 3 days ago

Technically, I don't think supreme Court appointments are necessarily lifetime appointments. Appointments to the federal judiciary are lifetime appointments, but the constitution doesn't specify that federal judges can't be rotated in and out of the supreme Court. I could be remembering that wrong though, it's been a while since my last read through.

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Because back then, the fastest way to get a message from a to b was to send a guy with a 🐎.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

It's because if politicians aren't professional grifters, they are supposed to resign and indict new elections, if the parliament doesn't have the numbers to pass laws.

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[–] shane@feddit.nl 2 points 2 days ago

Except in the USA there are only two parties and the party in power would basically never declare no confidence.

[–] skozzii@lemmy.ca 39 points 3 days ago

All of this just to hide the Epstein files.

[–] LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 29 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They are doing it on purpose to keep Congress closed forever and Donald will HAVE to make all the decisions.

This is another project 2025 power play to take rights away from Democrats and non fascists.

I think it's time to go for a walk or something.

[–] CarrmynCarnage@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

General strike. It's time.

[–] shane@feddit.nl 2 points 2 days ago

Is there a link to specific demands, or do you just mean as a show of strength?

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 58 points 4 days ago (2 children)

So Democrats are the reason the House has been in session only 20 days in the last 4 months?

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 16 points 4 days ago (2 children)

20 days? Wow. What is a typical number?

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I wasn't sure so I went looking. It fluctuates, but 150 days a year is what I found. So that would be 50 days per 4 months. Or rather that they have shown up about 40% of the norm.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago (4 children)

So for them this isn't even much different than normal. And they're still getting paid. Not that many of them need their government salary with all the campaign donations and insider trading. And guaranteed lobbying jobs at triple the salary or more after they're done.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Id say it's more than a bit different. It would be like if you or I started going into work Monday and Tuesday, and skipping Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Except yeah, they still get paid the same. To bad we couldn't all have jobs like that.

[–] Credibly_Human@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (4 children)

The crazy thing is, with the productivity improvements recently in human history, and the amount of time wasted doing what amounts to fluffing people higher up the chain with busy work or literally just sitting there work, we could all probably work notably less than we do if that work was spread equally and not wasted on bullshit like ensuring poor people feel bad.

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[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 8 points 4 days ago

Imagine working 2 days a week instead of 5. That's a pretty big difference.

[–] balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 3 points 3 days ago

They spend most of their time fund raising

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[–] Kirp123@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

They still get paid right?

[–] HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world 48 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)
[–] whiwake@sh.itjust.works 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Gotta put a space after the #

like this

[–] HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm on Sync, I forget that others are not. My bad

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 15 points 3 days ago

Love the republican we are doing nothing and its their fault. Such a modest ask to.

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago

Has polling ever shown a majority blaming dems for any shutdown? This has been a republican tactic for a while now and it doesn't substantially hurt them. Why would they give a shit?

[–] aarch0x40@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

The more people are available to self-inform (spending cuts/layoffs) means the more they’re available for waking up. Brilliant strategy on the GOP’s part.

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