Thread: Trump's popularity remains high among Republican voters, despite pessimism over wall

Trump's popularity remains high among Republican voters, despite pessimism over wall funding

by Allison Elyse Gualtieri
December 26, 2018 09:07 PM

A new poll that started surveying voters just hours before the partial government shutdown began put President Trump's popularity at its lowest point in more than a year.

The Morning Consult poll revealed, overall, 39 percent of registered voters approved of the president's job performance, his lowest approval rating since August 2017. That's in sharp contrast with Republicans' opinions, as he holds an 80 percent approval rating among registered voters in his own party.

Many of the 1,992 registered voters surveyed in the online poll were not optimistic, however, that the president would win the funding for his signature border wall, debate over which has the president and Congress in a stalemate that led to the partial government shutdown that started Dec. 22. More than half of Republicans — 54 percent — and 64 percent of all voters said it was unlikely Congress will approve funding for the wall. People who voted for Trump, however, were even less sure the president will win the funding he wants: Only 38 percent said it was likely Trump would get the full funding for the wall.

Trump has asked for more than $5 billion for border security measures, including a physical barrier at the U.S.-Mexico border. The House approved a spending bill last week that included the funds, but the measure did not have the votes to pass in the Senate. The Senate next meets Thursday.

The poll was conducted from Dec. 21-23 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...r-wall-funding

Republicans are common sense people. If you don't have the votes, because you don't have the seats, you won't be able to pass a bill you want that the opposing party doesn't want. It's just simple math.

Dear President Trump, please end this tomorrow and build the wall another way. You can still continue to fight for funding, keep the pressure on DemoQuacks, keep exposing them for who and what they are: idiots on the take with the cartels, plain and simple. But please end this shutdown and build the wall with other money like you were planning to do. Republicans will have your back on that. That's something we can do with our Republican controlled US Senate. We can block any effort to stop you from building the wall with other monies.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by Judy

Republicans are common sense people. If you don't have the votes, because you don't have the seats, you won't be able to pass a bill you want that the opposing party doesn't want. It's just simple math.

Dear President Trump, please end this tomorrow and build the wall another way. You can still continue to fight for funding, keep the pressure on DemoQuacks, keep exposing them for who and what they are: idiots on the take with the cartels, plain and simple. But please end this shutdown and build the wall with other money like you were planning to do. Republicans will have your back on that. That's something we can do with our republican controlled US Senate. We can block any effort to stop you from building the wall with other monies.

Thank you.

Another oxymoron---

1---- If you don't have the votes, because you don't have the seats, you won't be able to pass a bill you want that the opposing party doesn't want. It's just simple math.
2---- Republicans will have your back on that. That's something we can do with our republican controlled US Senate. We can block any effort to stop you from building the wall with other monies.

don't have the votes to build the wall

but

have the votes to block efforts to stop the wall building

I see you still don't understand the vote math of the US Senate. It takes 60 votes to pass a bill. It only
takes 41 votes to block a bill, and Republicans have 53.

Maybe you need to refresh on the word oxymoron and what it means, too.

Originally Posted by Judy

I see you still don't understand the vote math of the US Senate. It takes 60 votes to pass a bill. It only
takes 41 votes to block a bill, and Republicans have 53.

Maybe you need to refresh on the word oxymoron and what it means, too.

I see you are still making excuses for the R's

Trump doesn’t need 60 Senate votes to fix the border and short-circuit a shutdown

Don’t we need 60 votes to pass this, you might ask? The answer is very simple. If McConnell and his colleagues actually used the Senate rules and fought for our sovereignty with the same vigor with which they fight for Supreme Court justices, the border wall could prevail.

There is a big misconception that it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. That is not true. The reality is that the majority party controls the “chair,” aka presiding officer, and the majority gets to rule on motions with simple majority votes. A bill can also be passed with a simple majority, eventually. Where the 60-vote threshold comes into play is only if Democrats choose to hold the floor and continuously engage in debate. To shut off debate without any tedious brinkmanship, yes, it takes 60 votes (or procedural unanimous consent) to proceed to the bill. However, given that this is the end of the line for GOP trifecta control, there is no greater issue than border security, and Democrats will be made to look like the ultimate obstructionists on behalf of illegal aliens and drug cartels, isn’t it worth it to finally force them to engage in a talking filibuster until they relent?

Here’s how it works.

Senators don’t need unanimous consent to bring up a bill. The lack of unanimous consent or 60 votes doesn’t table a bill. It’s just that opposing senators in the minority can request to be recognized and continuously hold the floor. In recent years, majority parties have never made the minority do that. Sometimes it makes sense to pre-emptively achieve an agreement because the majority just can’t afford to chew up endless days on debate of a single issue. But sometimes there are issues worth fighting for. Either way, this is the end of the line for the 115^th Congress.


How do you get Democrats to stop talking? This is where Senate Rule XIX, “the two-speech rule,” comes into play. The rule explicitly prohibits individual senators from speaking “more than twice upon any one question in debate on the same legislative day.” Given that Republicans preside over the chair and control the floor, they can refuse to officially adjourn, opting only to recess temporarily, and keep the Senate in the same legislative day indefinitely. This will ensure that even the Democrats who are willing and able to speak for a long time will eventually be forced to relent.

This never happens and is never enforced, because Republicans never force Democrats to hold the floor in the first place and McConnell simply won’t bring up legislation without a unanimous consent agreement or without 60 votes to ultimately shut off debate. But if he forced the minority to hold the floor and enforced Rule XIX, Democrats would exhaust themselves very quickly. This is a strategy laid out by James Wallner, an expert on Senate procedure who is currently completing a manuscript on the history of the Senate.

Wallner points out that Democrats do have the ability to challenge rulings of the chair and bring up points of order or call for quorum calls as means of prolonging their floor time, but Republicans can dispense with their motions with 51 votes. Eventually, Democrats would run out of steam and exhaust their two speeches per member. This would theoretically take several days or weeks, but it all depends on the determination of each side. If Republicans keep them in session day and night and over the weekends and make them hold the floor, Democrats would eventually run out of options to block a majority vote to proceed with the border wall funding continuing resolution.

This strategy is even stronger in optics than in the raw technicalities. Actually forcing Democrats to publicly hold the floor in such a dramatic and unusual way, particularly on a government funding bill, will make the Democrat speech-givers look like utter fools and obstructionists during Christmas. It’s always conservatives who look bad on funding fights, because Republicans and Trump always pre-emptively surrendered. They never bothered to pass a good bill and dare Democrats to block it. This time, however, they finally passed a good budget bill out of the House. If McConnell would bring it up on the Senate floor and rigorously demand its passage with the president ready to sign it – while Democrats are virtue-signaling like clowns for hours on end in front of the cameras – the optics would be terrible for Democrats.
A committed Republican Party could use control of the chair to grind down Democrats even more while also exposing their radicalism. The chair could enforce a germaneness rule against senators bringing up extraneous matter to the question currently before the Senate, in this case, the House budget bill. Wallner explains the utility of such an approach as follows:


They would be prohibited from using their floor time during the first three hours of session to discuss unrelated issues. On a point of order, the Chair may call the filibustering Senator to order and force the member to take his or her seat. At that point, the member will have thus used one of his or her two speeches. While the Chair’s ruling is subject to appeal, the appeal can be tabled by a simple majority vote.

I would add, in the context of this debate, that forcing them to stay on topic would make Democrats stand before the American people and demonstrate that they are engaging in a Christmas filibuster on behalf of people invading our country with violence.

Wallner, in his strategy originally designed to confirm nominees, lists several other ways the majority can speed up the expending of each minority member’s two-speech allotment.

The bottom line is that with control of the chair, 51 votes, and sheer conviction (and coffee), a majority party can assert its will, especially with the pressure of a minority filibuster causing a government shutdown. This is how the civil rights bills passed. Republicans with convictions should recognize that having sovereign borders is the civil rights issue for all Americans, rooted in the entire social compact underpinning our federal government.

But the operative condition here is “conviction.” Republicans officially control the chair and have 51 votes, but they lack conviction. In reality, this is not a 60-vote problem; it’s a 51-vote problem. Conservatives have nowhere close to even 51 votes, and that includes leaders like McConnell. They couldn’t care less about our sovereignty and safety. McConnell was busy attacking Trump last night over the resignation of Secretary Mattis rather than pounding Schumer over the border and challenging him to a Senate procedural duel.

President Trump could embarrass McConnell by sending Vice President Pence to preside over the Senate, which is his constitutional right. He can have an allied senator get the ball rolling by calling up the bill instead of McConnell. Trump must remember that his entire presidency is on the line. This is his moment. He must use the bully pulpit and every constitutional tool at his disposal to finally force a national debate over the integrity of our own borders.

Yes, you've posted that at least a couple of times before. How's that working out for you?

Originally Posted by Judy

Yes, you've posted that at least a couple of times before. How's that working out for you?

Yes, I have posted it a couple times, and I see you apparently did not read it, because it gives a detailed description of how to get around the 60 vote thingy. Just got to have the desire to do it, and that is where the problem lies with the R's.

Originally Posted by stoptheinvaders

Yes, I have posted it a couple times, and I see you apparently did not read it, because it gives a detailed description of how to get around the 60 vote thingy. Just got to have the desire to do it, and that is where the problem lies with the R's.

Most Republicans don't want to get around the "60 vote thingy" because we believe in a Republic and the "60 vote thingy" is how we preserve and protect it from the chaos and dangers of mob rule "democracy".

I can't remember who wrote your article, but they're wrong about the US Civil Rights Act of 1964.

How many Republicans voted for 1964 Civil Rights?

In the House, the measure passed by a 333-85 margin, with 78 percent of Democrats backing it (221 yeas and 61 nays) and 82 percent of Republicans backing it (112 yeas to 24 nays). In the Senate, the measure passed by a 77-19 vote, with 73 percent of Democrats and 94 percent of Republicans supporting the bill. May 25, 2010

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...hts-bills-196/

For your information.