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Name that right-wingurr…. (..)
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Imagine if you threw a party and no one came. Pretty humiliating, right?
Well, imagine if you represented the party of big government, lost the presidency and both houses of Congress, then demanded a federal shutdown to impose your welfare-state agenda on the nation — and no one seemed to care much.
In that scenario, you’ve become your own worst enemy: You’ve inadvertently made your adversaries’ case that there really isn’t a meaningful voter constituency for a big-government leviathan.
The Obamacare premium subsidies which you have made the central issue in your shutdown stand aren’t beloved the way you thought.
You are hoisted with your own petard.
This is what the Democrats have done to themselves.
The AP-NORC poll last week reported that 54% of voters either have no opinion about or outright oppose extending the subsidies, and a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 61% of voters know little to nothing about them.
There is no organic street energy on the issue.
The markets have gone up since the shutdown started.
The average voter seems to be pretty “meh” about the whole Washington drama.
Ironically for Democrats, the shutdown actually exposes how the welfare state Ponzi scheme works — and in fact helps make the case for smaller government.
“Give us a temporary increase in health-care subsidies, including for the very wealthy, to help us get through COVID!” the Democrats cried in 2021.
But now it’s clear that was just a bait-and-switch.
The moment Republicans allowed the COVID “bonuses” to expire in 2025, as the Democrats promised they would, the Democrats called the GOP “authoritarian” for doing exactly what the Democrat-written law originally intended.
And this is how the big-government Ponzi scheme is always played: Find a crisis, fund it massively on the backs of taxpayers in hopes of gaining a new base of voter patrons, then call the other side bad names for not giving your new patrons more free stuff.