Discussion: Senate Dems Threaten A Shutdown And Make A Play For Trump Voters

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The Republicans will buckle.

AND will take credit for it in 2018. The miners will only remember that and vote accordingly.

EDIT TO ADD: Where is Sanders on this? I thought this was his bailiwick.

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Republicans won’t take credit for it because they don’t even have to. They won’t even bother because those same folks will vote for them anyway.

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Some of the problem is due to state-supported Chinese steel firms dumping steel onto world markets at below cost.

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And this should work out well too:

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Plus, a lot of that cheap Chinese steel is cheap in quality. I’m totally okay with requiring American-made steel. That said, I’m totally with Plucky, here, and believe this is a time we should keep our powder dry. Those very coal miners (the vast majority) either voted Trump or didn’t vote – and they’ve been Republican (by and large) since Saint Ronnie. I say give them what they voted for. I am sorry for any suffering, I really am – but I am also extremely concerned about the twenty million who will lose coverage and us on Medicare and Social Security. If the Republicans wish to fuck those people over, well then, I say to the Democrats: We’ve got much bigger fish to fry and many nasty battles ahead – Fight for those of us who voted for you. I am not saying be inhumane – if they are helped by our programs (and they are!) then good, but don’t go out of our way and spend political capital on those who keep voting against us.

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I’m not sure what the right strategy is, but there might be an advantage of pointing out the hypocrisy of Republicans:

Decry the supposed “Democrat war on coal” but deny healthcare benefits to coal miners;

Call yourself an “economic nationalist,” but reject a “Buy American” clause – which they also did in the 2009 stimulus bill.

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They won’t gain much by doing this once. They need to do it over and over until Republicans are branded.

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Seriously? These are the people who voted for the shyster: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-his-supporters-and-the-persistence-the-reality-gap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAQnXnQQCCI&t=1s

Heidi Heitkamp troubles goes a little deeper then white working class. She sided with oil co. pipeline going through Indian land. http://www.politicususa.com/2016/12/08/trump-supporters-alternate-reality.html

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Except they’re not threatening a “shutdown” (thanks for the framing though) - they’re simply saying they’re going to have a hard time voting for this legislation, as it currently stands - and the negotiating over which they were not involved.

House Republicans chose to and abdicate their responsibility and skip town, how is that the fault of Senate Dems? Govt. funding runs out midnight 12/31 - today is Friday, 12/9. But there’s not enough time to fix this?

Wow, talk about right-wing framing!

Also, folks are killing Joe Manchin - what about Sherrod Brown, he’s supporting this too, let’s not forget that.

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People seem to be confusing the voters that flipped from Obama to Trump with Trump’s core. Trump’s core are tea party voters. They hate government, unions, and anything labor related. A move like this is good for someone like Sherrod Brown to get those vote flippers to re identify with the economic agenda that made them lean Dem prior to 2016, but it isn’t going to change Trump’s core.

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Publicly oppose? Big photo ops? Communicate to voters who is standing with miners and who is not? Absolutely.

Shut down government? No. Each day of the Trump transition reveals a new horror. Democrats need to keep their powder dry for more important issues than protecting morans from their own bad choices.

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At the same time we need Joe Manchin to remain in the Democratic caucus. Am glad to see him standing up for his constituents with Heidi Heitcamp alongside him. If we stick together on this they will stick together with the Dems on future legislation that we really need to oppose(repealing the ACA).

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And then won big in 2010…

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Yes, and I know it seems like a fool’s errand to go after these voters, but we need to convince people that the Democrats are the only ones looking out for working people.

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As I said…don’t expect much sugar.

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I just don’t know that there’s anything we can do to convince them at this point. If someone desperately wants to believe something, they’ll continue believing it in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Case in point: Obamacare repeal. I don’t know how many times Pepe said he was going to repeal Obamacare, maybe 100s of times, and yet there have been a number of reports of his voters who are now concerned he’s going to repeal Obamacare.

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It’s all about celebrity and not necessarily old celebrity.
Celebrity can fizz and pop into existence in an instant.
But, it is all about celebrity and not so much word or thought as a sound or video clip that connects to the reptile brain, emo-blips that connect with something familiar, factual or no, even in that first spark of existence.
Got any of those?

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I say Dems should do the calculus and do whatever works to the Dems advantage. Not sure exactly what that is.

But if it means the miners are without insurance, no one ever said that life was fair. The GOP can certainly do something about saving miner’s healthcare insurance when they Replace ObamaCare with something that saves healthcare for the other 20+ million that are at risk of losing it.

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screw the miners. let them reap what they’ve sown

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Unless those Senators go on Fox News, all of them, their intended audience will never hear them.

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