Scrutable

The shutdown. To whose greater advantage?

Usually these shutdowns don't last very long, because the reputational cost to the opposition in refusing to pass a budget, and so causing a shutdown, is large. And typically the opposition gets only a few sweeties out of eventually agreeing, and the administration gets most of what it wants. The longest shutdown, at least in recent times, was 35 days.

Before the shutdown, I thought, maybe this plays into Trump's hands. He'll be able to stop spending on things he wants to stop spending on, but laws he can't escape from prevent him from cutting. And then I saw him saying publicly just that. Indeed, threatening that maybe spending won't be restored in those places. And that may be a reference to a recent SCOTUS ruling, see below.

Publicly, the Democrats are pointing to protecting the budget for Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), which this budget cuts. But there was an option tabled to keep things going for 7 weeks to discuss that specific issue further. So if that was all it was about, they could have kept things going for 7 weeks as they talked more. So some people don't believe that was the real reason. Some have suggested that that Schumer got it badly in the neck for avoiding a shutdown 6 months ago, and the main reason for that seems to be that many Democrats think that Trump is so awful there should be no collaboration

So is Trump more or less of a dicator in a shutdown?

Then some people are saying the recent SCOTUS ruling (Vox via Yahoo) allowing the president to "impound funds", ie stop spending ordered by Congress, might make it very hard to get out of this shutdown. Because it implies that whatever the parties agree in Congress in relation to spending can often be subverted by the president, meaning that any agreement isn't worth the paper it is written on. And so how can there be an agreement in that case?

So, in the end, who does this damage more? And is this shutdown going to last a long time?

IvanV wrote: Thu Oct 02, 2025 3:45 pm And is this shutdown going to last a long time?

The 2018/19 one went on for just over a month. People I have heard talking on the radio and such seem to have the consensus that it ended when air traffic controllers being annoyed at not being paid stopped showing up for work*, causing flight delays and much grumpiness towards everyone. I am expecting similar this time.

There's plenty of other people not getting paid too - the army not showing up for work would be quite funny.


*They do get paid for their time after the shutdown ends, but not everyone will be able to wait a month (or maybe two) for their pay before Problems begin.

...the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island remained open, "thanks to the leadership of President Donald J Trump", a Department of the Interior spokesperson told the BBC.

Source (BBC)

Just the kind of thing they say in dictatorships with a leadership cult, Russia, China, N Korea, Turkmenistan, etc.

Last week's Economist points out that the cost of losing government is substantially increased in the US, with harassment of members of the previous administration hugely increased. Of course the Trumpists claim that it was the Democrats who upped the lawfare stakes by prosecuting Trump, it being their creed that Trump did nothing wrong. But regardless of that, they have massively gone beyond that.

Interestingly Ted Cruz was expressing disquiet that having dissed woke cancel culture, MAGA has quickly created a stronger cancel culture of its own, which may be used against them if they lose power. Again, we see that the costs of losing power have become higher.

As that book, that I quote a lot, Why Nations Fail by Nobel Laureates Acemoglu and Robinson, points out: when the costs of losing power are high, it is entirely rational to take steps to reduce the risk of that happening. They point to various leaders doing seemingly weird things - destroying valuable infrastructure for example (we've just seen that in Afghanistan where they have closed the optic fibre communication system, turning the internet off, and limiting other forms of communication). But it is all rational when you realise that it serves to weaken the opposition and reduce the risk of losing power.

Good job Trump sacked the guy who said jobs figures were bad

An interesting graph that should be spread around. Source: CSIS. I read that CSIS is a bipartisan DC-based organisation.

So it is true to say that extreme left terrorist incidents exceed extreme right terrorist incidents so far in 2025. But the number is a small fraction of the usual number of extreme right terrorist incidents, which have suddenly almost stopped. So there's something you can say about Trump. The total number of terrorist incidents is much lower, because the extreme rightist terrorists currently do not feel much desire to commit their usual terrorism.

Because the terrorism is being enacted for them by the state.

headshot wrote: Tue Oct 07, 2025 9:15 pm Because the terrorism is being enacted for them by the state.

"Yeah, that's why the leftists haven't been doing it up til now!

Aamirite?"
(NB - this is the 'sarcasm' font)

IvanV wrote: Tue Oct 07, 2025 4:46 pm An interesting graph that should be spread around.
LvR US terrorism.jpg
Source: CSIS. I read that CSIS is a bipartisan DC-based organisation.

So it is true to say that extreme left terrorist incidents exceed extreme right terrorist incidents so far in 2025. But the number is a small fraction of the usual number of extreme right terrorist incidents, which have suddenly almost stopped. So there's something you can say about Trump. The total number of terrorist incidents is much lower, because the extreme rightist terrorists currently do not feel much desire to commit their usual terrorism.

This came up on Bluesky a week or so ago where a different chart was being shown. So, a White House Deputy Press Secretary should know better and there's no excuse for that.

BUT a random person glancing at that graph would be forgiven for interpreting this as showing left wing terrorism has always been higher than right wing. Stacked bar charts are a terrible format for something like this.

headshot wrote: Tue Oct 07, 2025 9:15 pm Because the terrorism is being enacted for them by the state.

And because the state has taken the decision to stop reporting them.

dyqik wrote: Wed Oct 08, 2025 3:20 pm

headshot wrote: Tue Oct 07, 2025 9:15 pm Because the terrorism is being enacted for them by the state.

And because the state has taken the decision to stop reporting them.

The CSIS graph appears to be based on their own compilation of incidents, not on any reporting by the government.