Shit, I assumed that data was relatively recent to the study’s publication. It doesn’t even cover Citizens United!

Strong leadership can shape public perception, so if that’s true, it’s just a further indictment of his inability to lead. I have to assume that Schumer thought Trump wouldn’t be able to get enough House Republicans behind his bill, and had no plan for how the Senate would respond if he did. It’s the only possible explanation for why he would let every House Democrat take the position that the shutdown would be preferable to the bill, then make them all look like idiots a few days later. I don’t think there’s any strategy happening here.

I mean, Princeton released a study over a decade that the U.S. was no longer a democracy but an oligarchy. I understand that the author means where descending into authoritarianism, but this didn’t start with Trump, and we left democracy behind a long time ago.

I know that was Schumer’s excuse last time, but I’m not sure that really adds up. The federal courts can still fund themselves for a few weeks after a shutdown. Also, the lower courts are slowing Trump down, but the Supreme Court is consistently ruling in his favor. If anything, he should want the courts to be running as quickly as possible so he can keep appealing and getting the Supreme Court to overturn all the restrictions the lower courts are placing on him.

Plus, while ICE is being designated an essential agency and ICE agents are expected to fulfill their full duties during a shutdown, they do it without pay (and get back-pay when the shutdown ends). That’s not a big deal for a week, but if you stretch a shutdown out for a month, that starts to hurt. I’d like to see how loyal Trump’s dogs are when they’re not getting fed.

It’s kinda insane that the largest entertainment company in the world can be completely up ended because one guy unilaterally decided to cave to fascism.

This is a lot like when Disney fired James Gunn after an astro-turfed right-wing campaign (spearhead by Mike Cernovich) convinced them that there was genuine outrage over some tweets he’d made a decade prior. Disney fired Gunn, there was a huge public backlash in response, and the entire Gaurdians cast threatened to walk. When they finally tried to rehire him, he was working for their largest competitor, which caused them to delay Gaurdians 3 by several years, and now Gunn is pulling DC studios out of it’s nosedive as Marvel is tanking.

Anyway, this time is a little different, because they’re clearly bowing to authoritarian government pressure as well, but they clearly misread the publics mood on this once again. It’s super weird that this billion dollar company keeps doing lasting damage to itself because it thinks Twitter is real life.

RFK is a true believer; he actually thinks, against all evidence and logic, that vaccines are bad for your health. Trump does not give a shit about vaccines, but he offered RFK the CDC position because A) RFK was running a third-party candidacy in 2024 that could have cost him several swing states and B) anti-vaxers are a large part of the Trump coalition, but he was losing their trust after promoting the covid vaccine. Most congressional Republicans are just going along with this out if cowardice.

So, tl:dr: ending vaccines is what RFK (stupidly) believes in, Trump put him in power to return a favor/appease a portion of his base, and every other Republican is too chicken-shit to do anything about it.