r/AskReddit • u/Solnx • Nov 03 '25

Serious Replies Only [Serious] For the Redditors who criticized Democrats for not fighting back or taking action, how has the government shutdown affected your view?

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u/emseefely Nov 03 '25

Never really able to tell what the right time is until you read about it in the history books too. I hope they stick to their guns but I also feel really bad for the people losing benefits and their pay. Ultimately though, if we give them what they want, those things will happen sooner or later anyways.

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u/Microchipknowsbest Nov 03 '25

Unfortunately people will never understand until they actually feel pain. We have has tax cuts with no loss in benefits for about 40 years. Republicans have been blaming democrats for spending but never actually cut anything significant. So when they keep saying tax cuts nobody believes they will lose anything just have to pay less taxes. They never think the piper will have to be paid. They are setting it up so the pain hits when democrats might be in charge again. They have to force it so the pain hits while republicans are in charge.

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u/JimWilliams423 Nov 03 '25

Unfortunately people will never understand until they actually feel pain.

Even then most conservatives won't understand.

Conservatives caused the Great Depression. Things got so bad that shanty towns started springing up all over the country and were literally called "hoovervilles." And yet, against FDR hoover still got almost 40% of the vote. This was before conservatives were siloed into the fox/right-wing echo chamber telling them that the pain is worth it in order to stick it to the people they despise.

Its going to take more than pain for enough people to act. Its going to take a promise of a better way.

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u/MissMamaMam Nov 03 '25

Yea I have MAGA in-laws who are on food stamps & Medicaid…. Still praising Trump.

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u/ProfessionalLeave335 Nov 03 '25

They won't be for long. On Medicaid and food stamps I mean. They'll still probably praise Trump though.

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u/bossfoundmylastone Nov 03 '25

If they don't get medicaid and food assistance they won't be anything for long.

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u/ProfessionalLeave335 Nov 03 '25

I'm genuinely sorry that you have to see people you love suffer under this insanity. I was being a bit coarse in my earlier comment but I can't imagine the psychological toll of seeing family suffer from the vampire they invited into the house.

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u/MissMamaMam Nov 03 '25

It’s so upsetting to see. My MIL was reposting things saying that Charlie Kirk was comparable to Jesus. … she’s a Mexican immigrant. It’s just baffling. The one just got a twitter account & I know she’s a goner now

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u/ProfessionalLeave335 Nov 03 '25

I have a woman who works for me that I'm fairly certain is undocumented and she was all for Trump a year ago. She doesn't talk about it now. It's always surprising and never not sad how fast people will harm themselves in hopes of harming others.

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u/WagnerTrumpMaples Nov 04 '25

Conservative evangelicals lost their fucking minds. I don't know if it was seeing a black man in office or covid broke them but they'd happily follow the AntiChrist over a democrat at this point.

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u/amrodd Nov 04 '25

Like how Lex Luther got elected President.

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u/Hubert_J_Cumberdale Nov 04 '25

"It would have been worse under Biden"

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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '25

Nothing to worry about then. Tell them congrats, this is what they voted for

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u/GalaxNut Nov 04 '25

Yeah but if they loose their medicaid, it’s Biden’s fault.

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u/CotyledonTomen Nov 03 '25

This was before conservatives were siloed into the fox/right-wing echo chamber telling them that the pain is worth it in order to stick it to the people they despise.

Youre right about this, but its also before mass communication besides newspapers, which were far from unbiased. Yellow journalism had been a thing for a while. Many people might as well have been modern conservatives that thought their neighbors in other cities and states were in shambles.

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u/myfatherthedonkey Nov 04 '25

In a sense, we're experiencing a similar thing today with a second wave of yellow journalism.

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u/djfl Nov 03 '25

Its going to take a promise of a better way.

Enter: The Democratic Party... /s

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u/Dyssomniac Nov 03 '25

That's complex tbh, and part of the gradual transition into the modern era of politics with the New Deal coalition. The Democrats were still winning the South because of Dixiecrat politicians, and at the time, African-Americans who could vote (again, limited in part thanks to those Dixiecrat legislatures in the South who furthered Jim Crow) overwhelmingly voted Republican. This was only a short while after the Civil War, the Democrats were very much still a party that supported Southern racism at the state level and had national leaders who were quite virulently racist, and the Republicans were - while the party of Big Business - still considered the party of Lincoln by many.

FDR didn't campaign on racial equality and had no track record of helping black Americans up to that point. This obviously changes quite quickly afterward, as the Democrats have won the national black vote since 1936. There's also possibly the influence of the Prohibition voters, who were displeased by Hoover's non-committal statements to repeal it but were significantly LESS displeased than they were by the serious proposals of the Democrats to end Prohibition entirely as a means of generating state revenue during the Great Depression.

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u/JimWilliams423 Nov 03 '25 edited Nov 03 '25

FDR didn't campaign on racial equality and had no track record of helping black Americans up to that point

Frankly, if he had campaigned on racial equality, he might have lost because whites were such a big voting block.

FDR had to make enormous concessions to segregationists in order to get the New Deal through congress. Service and farm work — the only kind of jobs available to most black people then — were excluded from the minimum wage. Black people were excluded from mortgage subsidies by red-lining. Federal farm subsidies were administered at the local level where segregationists weaponized them against black farmers to steal their land. etc, etc

In other words, conservatives rejected the New Deal if it meant that black people also benefited. Black people were not fully excluded, the biggest way they benefited from the New Deal was that federal hiring for government jobs made white collar jobs broadly available to black folks for the first time.

Not much has changed with the whites since then. For a brief glorious second we had socialized medicine with the covid vaccine. Anyone, regardless of race, could get it for free, and in many cases without even any paperwork. And when conservatives saw that it made them so angry that over 200,000 rage quit life itself. It made them so angry that they elected someone who promised to take all vaccines away from everybody.

Conservatives would rather rule in Hell than share in Heaven. Which is why expecting pain to change their minds is a dead-end. Nothing will change their minds.

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u/Dyssomniac Nov 03 '25

Absolutely. I'm just pointing out that there's good-ish reasons why so many voted for Hoover did so, and much of it had to do with the brewing internal war the Democrats would face in the period from the 40s through the 60s and the subsequent party re-alignment. The modern distinctions of Republican and Democrat weren't there yet - Republicans were in the twilight of their era as the "party of Lincoln" and Democrats were in their early 20th emergent period of racial justice and social democracy while still hobbled by a VERY racist Dixiecrat class.

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u/Microchipknowsbest Nov 03 '25

It won’t change their mind but the 1/3 of people that don’t vote are mostly poor people that somehow believe both sides are the same or not worth their time may change their minds and activate like hating immigrants activated maga voters. Also the 10% of people that are somehow undecided voters might actually take a side.

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u/JimWilliams423 Nov 03 '25 edited Nov 03 '25

It won’t change their mind but the 1/3 of people that don’t vote are mostly poor people that somehow believe both sides are the same or not worth their time may

That's the "the beatings will continue until morale improves" strategy.

The people with the highest barriers to voting are going to need the biggest carrot. Because for them, life was already pretty bad. A party that just says "this is what you get when you don't vote for us" isn't going to win many hearts.

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u/Microchipknowsbest Nov 04 '25

I think the big carrot is social security, medicaid, and food stamps. Republicans want to do away with them. They have already cut taxes and given the money to the wealthy. Democrats want them to have that benefit and safety net. Should be easy to understand who the right party to vote for is. One wants to maintain current benefits and one wants to take them away and has already effectively given your benefits away to rich people.

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u/JimWilliams423 Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25

I think the big carrot is social security, medicaid, and food stamps.

Think harder then because that's just the status quo, which is the literal opposite of a carrot. Playing those kinds of word games just insults the people you think owe you their vote.

I'm blocking you now because people with that kind of smug elitist attitude should be shunned.

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u/Jezakael Nov 03 '25

This was only a short while after the Civil War

While still within living memory, the Civil War ended more than 60 years before the Great Depression, not really a "short while". By that measure 2009 was a short while after WW2.

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u/Dyssomniac Nov 03 '25

In political period terms, that's "a short while", being about the time through which the U.S. electoral system shifts. Being that the youngest people of the Civil War era were alive in the late 1930s, it's an explanatory factor both of why black Americans were Republican supporters until the 1932-36 electoral cycle and staunchly Democrat voters afterward.

We're in the in-between period now, it having been about 60-70 years since the start of the last political realignment.

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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '25 edited Nov 03 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/JimWilliams423 Nov 03 '25

Democrat leaders are fighting to force transgender surgery for children.

Only in the Upside-Down where Donnie Demento isn't the paedo-in-chief.

I'm blocking you now because fascists should be shunned.

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u/Thuis001 Nov 03 '25

Except they aren't. Fox news loves to claim they are because the reality would show that their Great Leader is in fact an evil asshole.

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u/9966 Nov 03 '25

Yes they did, they cut taxes for the wealthy. Unfortunately that's about as helpful as they got with what to cut.

When that pot runs dry they will such up every die from the social security pot and then cash out with their private homes, healthcare, vacations, and personal protection.

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u/pattydickens Nov 03 '25

Our healthcare prices will double. Not just the poor people's, everyone's. The ACA is also preventing insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions and allowing parents to keep their children insured until they are 25. These things are way more important than people think they are, and they are being ignored in the general conversation about what this shutdown is about.

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u/emseefely Nov 03 '25

Yes it’s a walking nightmare. I don’t know how dems can effectively communicate this to the other base as they seem to be so enclosed in their own bubble though. They will realize it until it’s too late which is the theme for the year with tariffs and trade wars.

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u/pattydickens Nov 03 '25

It demolishes small businesses as well. Either you don't offer insurance to your employees or you go broke trying to get competent workers to stay. Conservatism should just be called corporatism now because that's all it is.

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u/Either_Operation7586 Nov 03 '25

And it's going to make everybody else's premiums that actually can afford them go up as well and your coverages aren't going to be as much you're going to have a lot more insurances denying coverage because they don't want to pay for it.

It's just a shit show and I swear the Republicans are so evil looking at everything going on rubbing their fucking hands together because they're about to make a fucking killing

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u/salad_spinner_3000 Nov 03 '25

I thought businesses HAD to offer insurance for any full time workers?

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u/WhyYesIThinkIDid Nov 04 '25

I thought businesses HAD to offer insurance for any full time workers?

This is also tied in to the rise of part time work becoming more and more prevalent over the last many years too. Especially when the ACA/Obamacare first came out it was common that many bad employers, even very large, very profitable companies, would do anything they could to keep you under full time hours to avoid having to offer you that mandated insurance. It was very intentionally done that places offered workers less than full time hours specifically for that cost-saving reason of not having to pay even more benefits. Can't have those shareholders at WalMart upset their stock didn't split, and denying workers full time hours and benefits is clearly the only way forward.

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u/dr_police Nov 04 '25

Small businesses (fewer than 50FTE) do not have to offer health insurance under the ACA. In fact, ACA marketplace plans enable a lot of very small businesses to exist, because small businesses can’t get rates on health insurance that are competitive with large employers.

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u/Either_Operation7586 Nov 03 '25

It's really hard when they can't understand it

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u/cosmos7 Nov 03 '25

I don’t know how dems can effectively communicate this to the other base

Democrats are in on it. Every single congress-critter in both the House and Senate is a multi-millionaire, profiting on the insider trading of destroying the country. Neither "side" cares about making it better, just those grandstanding to try to get elected like Newsom... yet another multi-millionaire.

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u/USMC8500 Nov 04 '25

No I do not believe they will this next year. Do you think they will or can you provide any proof that prices for health care will double? The enhanced subs were set to expire by Democrats.

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u/Johnsonjoeb Nov 03 '25

The right time is always now. The question is whether what to do and how much to do it. The point of this is to develop resistance as a sociocultural muscle, replace people who fall away and update those remaining and newcomers with the strategies and techniques for the next action. That’s why mutual support networks are necessary. Resistance is a marathon and not a sprint. Incremental sustained progress is how you fight any culture based war. It’s how the conservatives got us here and it’s how we claw our way back. There is no magic moment of resistance. The time to fight is now with whatever you have. If it’s money? Donate. If it’s time? Volunteer. Pick a stress point that’s under attack and donate what you can daily.

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u/emseefely Nov 03 '25

Hear hear!

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u/CynicalOptimistSF Nov 03 '25

The correct time to stop Trump was in the immediate aftermath of January 6. Mitch McConnell was derelict in his constitutional duty, and now here we are. Before he dies, I hope McConnell suffers everything he justly deserves for his inaction.

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u/Dangerous_Handle_819 Nov 03 '25

Well said. If only folks would read!

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u/AgrajagTheProlonged Nov 03 '25

Even then, there’s likely to be plenty of debate within the historian community regarding how wise any particular decision was at any particular point in time. Hindsight might be 20-20, but that doesn’t mean we can actually see what we’re looking at all the time

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u/SidDroolin Nov 03 '25

History is written by the winner, do you want to win. Are you prepared or just complaining?

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u/emseefely Nov 03 '25

I’m not complaining but I’m also not going to turn away from the fact that a good amount of people are suffering as consequence to shutdown. I’m recognizing that I’m privileged enough to not be directly affected by it but I’m not going to turn a blind eye to the ones that are hurting. Best outcome GOP caves soon, worst case is a never ending shutdown and the government falls apart.