Want to understand what Trump is doing? Part 2

So now we know where all the money from cuts has gone...

That and golfing in Florida.

So tomorrow the Senate votes on the Republican funding bill. If it does not pass, the entire government gets shut down at midnight Friday. Employees in essential positions, like soldiers and air traffic controllers, will continue to working without paychecks. They will get back pay when Congress figures out a deal.

There is some question of support from Dems. Dem voters, from what I have seen, want the dems to vote no to shut it down.

For the first time in my life, I want them to shut it down. We are at a make or break point and if he us allowed to continue as he has until September, the country will never be the same. There is already so much damage done.

A shut down could backfire for dems though. Trump will blame the dems and MAGA will eat it up.

Thank you for your posts, imaround. I think many of us are appreciating them, as well as feeling for you in the situation your country is in. What, I ask myself, is the point of MAGA? At the moment it seems to be making America a lot less great, and I can't see why they ever thought it wasn't great before!

They are so disillusioned that they honestly believe he is going to "Male American Great". Even with all this evidence thay shows he is not.

It is a cult.

It appears Democrat Senator Schumer is voting to avert a shutdown.

www.theguardian.com/2025/mar/14/donald-trump-chuck-schumer

I saw that too. Sounds like AOC is trying to rally Dems in spite of Schumer.

What a dilemma.(because of people not being paid, admidst all thats happening)

Shame that the Democrats couldn't get together to do some kind of deal for voting yes?

Just watched a bit live on PBS but had to turn off in disgust at what a Republican was saying.

I'm not completely updated, but it looks like they passed the continuing resolution with several dems voting yes.

We are screwed. No one is coming to help us.

This was a big disappointment imaround

Its not over yet x

Why are the Democrats not putting up a more robust resistance? If it all goes wrong (maybe not) they’ll have to share in the blame game.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Why are the Democrats not putting up a more robust resistance? If it all goes wrong (maybe not) they’ll have to share in the blame game.

Perhaps allowing a shutdown would terminate people who could then not be re-hired when government funding was back on?

abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-democrats-tight-lipped-after-huddling-looming-government/story?id=119772584

I understand Norah thanks for the link. It’s just that iamaround who didn’t vote for Trump and who lives there said For the first time in my life, I want them to shut it down. We are at a make or break point and if he is allowed to continue as he has until September, the country will never be the same. There is already so much damage done.

I agre Norah. It was Hobsons choice for the democrats on this one. I think the need felt to protect those workers overrode a protest.

Well FGM my heart agreed with imaround and my head with "protecting".

I agree with her analysis and the terrible damage being done day on day but I don't think they will be "blamed" since this is only a piece of the monstrous jigsaw we are witnessing which is utterly, clearly as in the hands of Trump, Vance, Musk and oligarch friends.

He is destroing the government and hundreds of thousands of people are already losing jobs.

A shut down would have given the dems targeting power. Instead, the dems just handed Trump power without a fight.

There is stuff in that bill that actually gives Trump more power. Now it is going to be even harder to stop him.

Not targeting, leveraging. I'm not even sure how auto correct made that connection!

imaround I expect you’re as disappointed with the Democrats as you are furious with Trump then. No opposition isn’t good in a democracy. The Democrats are conspicuous by their absence these days. There seems to be no one in charge.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put out a statement blasting "big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party."

"It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them," he said Wednesday. "First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right."

It seems factions within the Democrat party are pulling against each other. It’s going to take a while it seems before they have a plan proper of how to oppose Trump effectively.

Are you trying to blame shift FriedGreenTomatoes2? The Democrats crime is of omission, Trump’s crime is of harmful action. I know which I think is worse.

It is time for the old establishment Dems to go. Pelosi and Schumer need to be voted out. But they are both in until 2029 so we are stuck with watching them do nothing for 4 more years.

Looking historically, I suppose, political parties come and go. We are in one of those adjustment periods I guess. We need more then 2 political parties in the US, but neither the Dems nor the Repubs want to give up power.

Ranked choice voting is starting to pop up and become more popular. If it can gain traction, we could see a shift in political parties, but that would take a decade at least IMO.

We can not rely on Dems to fix this, but we have known that for a while.

The person responsible for what is happening in the country is Trump. Well, and Musk. Those two are the ones responsible for people losing jobs and homes, not the Dems.

The only people who can stop them, in the end, is the people who put him there. And they haven't all been sufficiently harmed enough from his policies to rise up against him, unfortunately. They still believe when he tells them they will only feel a little pain, and things will get better. He is stringing them along and they are buying it, and then blaming Dems because they are feeling a pinch.

Trump invoked the Alien Invasion Act against migrants from Venezuela. The last time this was used was WWII. It allowed the government to round up Japanese people and put them in internment camps.

A judge has already issued an order against this.

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/invocation-of-the-alien-enemies-act-regarding-the-invasion-of-the-united-states-by-tren-de-aragua/

imaround

The person responsible for what is happening in the country is Trump. Well, and Musk. Those two are the ones responsible for people losing jobs and homes, not the Dems.

The only people who can stop them, in the end, is the people who put him there. And they haven't all been sufficiently harmed enough from his policies to rise up against him, unfortunately. They still believe when he tells them they will only feel a little pain, and things will get better. He is stringing them along and they are buying it, and then blaming Dems because they are feeling a pinch.

You are completely right about where responsibility lies. I've been reading up more on CNN about whats happened in various departments and plans to restrict protest.

Heart breaking pictures of ordinary tax workers in tears out side the building from which they had been just told to go, job gone.

What I would say is that in these kinds of extreme circumstances, unknown in US history,

it's not surprising that the Democrats don't have a fully fledged and agreed to response ready to hand. I would be very surprised if it did.

Different democrats will have different POV, but that doesnt mean to say that up and down the country things cant be done and are being done.

thats where I disagree with FGT when she says "The Democrats are conspicuous by their absence these days". They aren't, they are there on demonstrations and active in masses of court cases and are probably talking hard on strategy.

It's quite usual for a party after an election defeat to re group and the unusual situation of Biden leaving it late to step down left matters in a really difficult situation.

You're probably right about the "old guard" having to go imaround to let young energetic people to step forward.

This is how legal.migrants are being treated.

This man ended up being hospitalized. A Canadian woman has been held for days after she went to the border to renew her visa.

www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025-03-14/green-card-holder-from-new-hampshire-interrogated-at-logan-airport-detained

It's going on, on a massive scale. When you read why he was detained its ludicrous - and
"Senior described Schmidt being “violently interrogated” at Logan Airport for hours, and being stripped naked, put in a cold shower by two officials, and being put back onto a chair.

She said Schmidt told her immigration agents pressured him to give up his green card. She said he was placed on a mat in a bright room with other people at the airport, with little food or water, suffered sleep deprivation, and was denied access to his medication for anxiety and depression.

“He hardly got anything to drink. And then he wasn’t feeling very well and he collapsed,” said Senior.

He was transported by ambulance to Mass General Hospital. He didn’t know it at the time, but he also had influenza." He's being held for what?

Stories from the Deported

www.hrw.org/blog-feed/the-deported