[mindslight]

Impeachment. Negotiations should start with impeachment. The President is not faithfully executing the laws passed by Congress, and the Supplicating Council has decreed that the only remedy is impeachment. It's time to impeach and convict.

[aidenn0]

When about half of congress is more okay with the executive collecting power than with impeaching the executive, that threat is meaningless.

[mindslight]

Well yes, the follow up to my point is that every member of Congress who is not currently supporting impeachment/conviction is complicit in this abject failure of governance.

Congress has had problems for decades (thanks to Newt and the childish boomers), which is what has been accreting so much power in the Presidency to begin with. But there is still time to pull up by Congress reasserting its authority as an institution, and that time is now.

[ethbr1]

The balance shifts after the midterms, even if the Republicans win big.

Then the president is on his way out, and Republicans start looking for and building favor with the next person.

(Which is really what all the "third term" BS is about. Trump has no intention, age-wise, of running for a third term, but talking about it keeps the lame duck calculus on ice. Hence why there aren't any details about "how", just a vague "we have a plan")

[bee_rider]

Sure, but they won’t actually do that. So, indefinite shutdown I guess?

[mindslight]

I think the top level comment really sets a great context for discussing this. The Republican goal has been to destroy, part out, and sell off our Constitutionally-limited government. Whether the government is nominally "shut down" or not doesn't really matter to that overall plan.

So yes, this is not going to be resolved in a matter of weeks. But something has to happen in order for it to resolve one way or another, and one of those possibilities (that you should be championing if you appreciate our Constitutionally-limited government!) is for Congress to start exerting their authority independent of Dear Leader's grip on the Party.

[collingreen]

The third time will totally be different guys!

[mindslight]

It's one of the very few remaining in-system ways for the Constitutional US Government to continue existing. So yes, I would say it's worth banging that drum again. Maybe Susan Collins has even learned a lesson of her own.

[jonway]

No impeachment has ever worked.