So only these 10 people were right?

[Tansy_Gold]

69. Shutting it down would have had other consequences . . . .

. . . . that would have made (eventually) turning it back on imperative.

Shutting down the government means shutting down the federal govt, but it does NOT mean shutting down the state governments. Though a federal govt shutdown might have been advantageous for some of 💩's nefarious plans, it would also have forced the states to step in. That's the one thing 💩 doesn't want -- the (more powerful) states becoming even more powerful.

But I say that from a very biased standpoint. More and more and more -- see David Gerrold's post on FB if you haven't already -- people are talking about the very real possibility of civil war. There are (somewhat facetious) memes asking Canada to adopt/annex the US, others showing the US split between Mexico and Canada. Underlying this, of course, is the notion -- the fear, if you will -- that the nation conceived in liberty in 1776 and preserved at great cost in human suffering in 1865 cannot, in fact, endure much longer. That instead of the single legal issue of chattel slavery dividing the country geographically, all the other economic issues that stemmed from that ideological basis divide us now literally within our neighborhoods, within our schools, within our workplaces. Within our online forums.

I think the most telling part of Gerrold's post was this:

There is a story about a scientist who was enlisted to debate a preacher about life on Earth. The scientist said, "If you can present compelling evidence, I am willing to change my views." He then asked the preacher, "If I can present compelling evidence, are you willing to change your views." The preacher said, "No, I am not." The scientist then said, "Then we cannot have a debate, not even a discussion."

And that is the ultimate divide between us.

MAGAts are the believers who are unwilling -- perhaps unable, but definitely unwilling -- to change their views in the face of any evidence.

What we the people of the US have been stripped of is any and all protection from predation by the powerful forces aligned against us, against our Constitution. The 2017-2021 regime sealed the Supreme Court, and thereby ALL the federal courts against us. Even if by some chance a SCOTUS justice rules against the current regime, there is no mechanism to prevent 💩 and/or 🍉 replacing that justice or simply not obeying the ruling, because there is no body to enforce it. We listen to the encouraging voices of the liberal YouTubers, but we have no institutions we can reliably turn to in the event of mass arrests of dissidents, of people of color, of intellectuals, of LGBTQIA+.

And yet we continue to protect and defend those institutions even when they have proven they will not -- and perhaps cannot -- protect and defend us.

The sanctity of The Union -- like the sanctity of a marriage -- is only as valid as the willingness of the constituents to maintain it. it's been said before, and by better economists, historians, political scientists than I, that maybe it's time for a national divorce. Whether it will be amicable or acrimonious remains to be seen. I live in a somewhat purple state, but in a very very red area of it, so I'm not speaking from a position of comfort with this idea of separation. But frankly, I don't see that either option presented to the Democratic senators was fully viable unless they were willing to consider changing their views on the continued viability of The Union at this point.

The sovereignty of the states is already being challenged; the sovereignty of private institutions is under assault. The assets of non-profit organizations are being frozen and one should not assume the courts will unfreeze those assets nor that those assets cannot be simply appropriated by a government agency.

We need, I think, to lose our unshakeable trust in the institutions. We need to turn off the magical thinking that this is all somehow going to go away with the 2026 midterms. Maybe, just maybe, we need to stop fighting over whether those 10 senators were right or wrong, and start considering that maybe the whole system is wrong and has been for a very long time. Maybe, just maybe, we need to think about why we see Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as our champions and potential leaders.

I caught hell here back in 2008 when I voiced my displeasure over Obama's financial transition team. I believed then, and I have never changed my belief, that he was preserving a very dangerous status quo. I railed against the Democrats' seeming inability, even when they had a super-majority in the Senate, to take advantage of that opportunity. The institutions, the protocols, the norms had to be preserved at all costs . . . and it now seems that protecting the institutions has cost us the institutions and the country.

What if anything, or who if anyone, will save us? Nothing and no one if we aren't willing to do it ourselves.