Fascists want us to comply in advance. Democrats, the opposition party, complied in advance. It is well understood that fascists move one step at a time so that they can execute their plans without serious opposition from the people.

So it does matter what Schumer does, because the fascists wanted to move unopposed and he, as minority leader, let them get away with it. My point is that Schumer’s fake concern that the fascists will have more leeway with a shutdown is bunk. The fascists goal was to get congressional approval and they got it for free.

Nothing to do with this comment thread it’s just something that annoys me.

This isn’t about leftist moral purity. Chuck Schumer sided with the fascists on the only recourse we had to meaningfully resist them for the next six months. He betrayed us for billionaires. He add the ability to get results. Instead, he threw away the country for nothing. Billionaires are not our friends. They would happily see us off to the death camps if they could make more money that way. Which is what they are doing right now. We need to have a greater sense of self-preservation than working with someone who is effectively a Republican.

What’s the more likely scenario

His donors told him to not shut down the government to save their stock value. He doesn’t agree with Republicans. Billionaires have a class interest to increase the value of the shares they own. All the politicians who serve billionaires instead of working class voters are going to vote the same way. Because no matter which billionaires politicians serve the billionaires share the same interest. It’s the simplest explanation.

Voters are not dumb

It’s not an intelligence test. Voters aren’t paying attention because they don’t have time because they live pay check to pay check. Mike Johnson, the House majority leader, still blamed Democrats for almost shutting the government down even though he was the one who put the House on recess to put pressure on the Senate.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/aoc-chuck-schumer-gop-funding-bill

But House Speaker Mike Johnson sent his members home to their districts after Republicans advanced the spending bill on Tuesday, effectively forcing Senate Democrats to accept the measure as passed or risk a shutdown. In a statement on Friday, Johnson applauded his caucus for sticking together and accused Democrats of nearly triggering a shutdown “simply because they seem to hate President Trump more than they love America”.

This is messaging. That’s the sort of thing that’s gets on Fox or CNN aired totally uncritically and if that’s all a person hears between now and the midterms that’s going to be a deciding factor in how they vote. edit: typos

The fascists will do what they want either way. They only use laws when it is convenient for them to do so.

What the fascists wanted was to be legitimized by bipartisan support of their bill. They wanted the Democrats to consent in advance. To take the next small step willingly.

Chuck Schumer has handed the country over to the fascists in exchange for nothing because he serves the same billionaires.

There wasn’t a sudden realization from Schumer that flipped his opposition on Wednesday to his support on Thursday. That was his obvious cover to try to hide the billionaires he serves. Don’t fall for it.

Whoever controls the messaging can blame the other party for the shutdown. Democrats don’t bother to even have a narrative let alone control one. They fight in a strictly performative way. So no matter what happens Republicans can always blame Democrats and without an alternative view point pushed people who aren’t politically engaged are more likely to believe Republicans.

The ten Democrat Senators who voted for the CR do not care about winning. They care about raising their donors’ stock portfolios.

The rise of fascism globally isn’t an intelligence test. People are trapped in information silos. No matter how smart a person is, if all they have is propaganda it’s rational to assume they are going to believe the propaganda. We need to get true information into these information silos to help these people.

3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

This one definition covers all humans so it’s not particularly useful.

Also, this implies treating life as a zero-sum game is at least a correct strategy if not outright claiming it to be the preferred strategy. Part of trying to solve our problems involves overcoming this impulse and avoiding pointless tit-for-tat cycles which often land people in the situation your argument’s definition states as problematic. Namely, in game theory terms, two people cheating in a prisoner’s dilemma in order to gain and thus ensuring mutual loss.

I bring all that up because this just happened in the last election where pro-Palestinian activists and Democrat supporters of Kamala Harris could not get on the same page despite sharing the same goals.

5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

We are consciousness running on meat sacks in a physics based universe. It only takes one person acting on self-destructive ideas and false information to be a danger to themselves and others. edit: typos