[indrax]

>and that's why we're log-jammed at the moment.

This implies that it's just a matter of mistakes made in the past, that it created some mechanical-procedural problem that all our politicians are powerless to fix, and it just needs to work itself out with maybe some nudging.

This suggests that it is not the case that some group is actively maintaining a condition of closed government offices.

[bmelton]

Putting that statement back into context though, I went on to explain that either party could reopen offices.

The problem is that generally, each party thinks that their opposition party is the one that can clear the jam, while ignoring that both parties are being stubborn on their points.

A fun, but unrelated exercise would be to see if you can find faults by members of your preferred party that has contributed to the intractability of the current standoff. If you cannot, then I would wager that your stance on this issue is colored by party lines.

More fun, as most people would do when faced with this challenge, is to watch as people acknowledge faults in their own party, but then go on to subsequently explain how much more egregious the faults are that reside in the opposition party.

Everybody's politics is naturally colored by their own beliefs, but as a debate on procedure, they're basically irrelevant here. We have a standoff. The timing of it is poor, and perhaps the motivations for it are even worse, but we have a standoff, and neither party is willing to negotiate in good faith.

That particular fault lies equally with both parties at present, and any attempts to influence the conversation otherwise are disingenuous, in my humble opinion.

[indrax]

>I went on to explain that either party could reopen offices.

You didn't in the comment I replied to. You talked about what the Supreme Court did, What the Senate could have done, and said that both parties and both wings are at fault. This all fits the logjam narrative.

I see now you speak of solutions that could come from either party through a 'simple vote'.

My preferred party is not at fault because my preferred party is not in congress. My comment was nonpartisan and did not restrict blame to any one house or party, or even branch. It extended blame into the present.

That said, there are some car accidents in which one party is at fault yet which could still have been prevented by defensive driving by other parties. You could always say everyone involved failed to yield right of way. I also suspect any explanation of simple voting must include the word filibuster.