TJ Walker, in a YouTube monologue, disputes the Republican claim that Democrats seek to give "free health care to illegal immigrants," arguing Democrats aim to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and restore Medicaid cuts. He warns a government shutdown is likely and frames it as a painful but potentially necessary lever to prevent premium increases, prevent removal of coverage for immigrants, and to slow what he describes as Donald Trump’s consolidation of power and threats to democratic norms.
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Democrats and Republicans, they're at it again. Republicans are blaming Democrats for the looming government shutdown, claiming it's all about giving, quote, free health care to illegal immigrants. Only one problem that's false. That's a polite way of saying it's a lie. The truth. Democrats are trying to extend Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care act, subsidies for millions of American citizens and restore Medicaid cuts. Republicans passed this in the big domestic policy law doing the cuts. If nothing happens, premiums will double for millions next year. The GOP plan would kick 1.2 million legal immigrants off coverage and strip subsidies from countless families. And there's a bigger danger. A shutdown would give Trump cover to keep consolidating power, avoiding oversight and investigations into actions already widely seen as unconstitutional. Purging the Justice Department to dangling pardons for January 6th rioters for. And he didn't just dangle them, he gave them. For Democrats, forcing a shutdown might be the only way left to slow the slide from democracy to authoritarianism. What's the big message here? A government shutdown is likely coming, and guess what? It's the best possible thing that could happen among all the horrible things facing our country right now. It's a blunt instrument, it's going to be a painful instrument, but it's the only way the Democrats can send a message to Donald Trump. No more fascism, no more authoritarianism. You cannot rule this country like a dictator. We're going to make it stop today. So. So I personally don't like government shutdowns. I don't respect most of the time, the people. And Barack Obama did it once who used this gimmick to shut down the government. For those of you in other countries not following it that closely, we have this weird thing where the Congress passes laws saying we want to spend money for Social Security, defense, environment, this and that, and the bureaucracy sets up, they start sending it. And then there's another law that says we can only have a debt level at a certain amount and that has to be raised, otherwise they can't actually spend the money that the government itself already appropriated. So it's another way to sort of put the kinks into things and slow things down, which normally I'm not a fan of because it gives a lot of power to a handful of people and allows tax. Typically, whichever party says we don't care about people really being harmed and going hungry and starving, et cetera, we want to make a point. It typically gives people who don't really believe in government working the upper hand. So you See, time and time again, Democrats typically cave to whatever demands Republicans have in order to reduce spending. Somewhere this is a little bit different. This is the Democrats essentially saying, we just don't forget raising more money. We don't want you to just throw millions of people out of their health care plan and to subvert democracy. Now, others have suggested that we'd be frankly, much better off if the government shut down because Trump on a daily basis is doing so many things that in any other context, any other political era, no matter Republican or Democrat, would be considered grounds for impeachment. But because he's doing 10 of these day, no one can keep track there. Everyone's head is spinning. Whether it is just simple things, like Congress passed a law saying TikTok had to be sold and Trump just ignores it. Routinely spending money on things that Congress didn't authorize. That's not what's in our Constitution. Routinely refusing to spend money on things Congress did authorize, trying to fire members of the Fed for no legitimate reason. All of these things are either unconstitutional or extra constitutional. But the problem is we've got a Republican Senate that just rolls over and plays dead because they're so afraid of a nasty tweet from Trump and all the threats they'd get to their spouses and children. We have a Supreme Court and increasingly an entire judiciary that is beholden to Trump. He either appointed them or they're so fearful of him, they say, whatever you want, boss. Forget the Constitution. We're just going to go by, this is a Trump kingdom and he gets to do whatever he wants. This is one bit of leverage the Democrats still have. And I don't say this lightly, I'm not a big fan of making statements and grabbing headlines when it means shutting down. You know, everyone loves to hate the government in the abstract, but everyone actually loves government. If you're trying to fly from LA to Chicago or to New York to raise money for your startup or to raise money for your conservative political action committee, and all of a sudden there are no air traffic controllers, you're going to think, huh, maybe not all government is bad. So not to mention the way Trump is extorting law firms and universities and major media companies. All things completely unprecedented in the history of our country. And if shutting down the government just slows down this destruction of the very fiber of our country, I'm all in favor of it. Would there be massive pain? Yes. Would there be hunger? Yes. Would there be unmet medical needs? Yes. But all of that's happening anyway. As more and more and more power consolidates to Trump in his reign of terror. So if this is what Democrats do, I would wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly endorse it. Comments coming in Shutdowns don't hurt politicians. They hurt families and workers in general. That is right. Some shutdowns do hurt politicians. It hurts their standing with the public. Famously, Newt Gingrich shut down the government in 1995 because his feelings were hurt, because Bill Clinton didn't let him come in through the front door and sit with him on Air Force One. And that is one of the reasons voters said in polling as to why they wanted to get rid of Gingrich, get rid of and get him out. And in fact, the, the Democrats did well after that. So it does, it does sometimes hurt politicians. But you're right, as a class of people, they have enough money for food, they have enough money for health care. Their families are going to be fine generally. So you are right about that. It's going to be some interesting times. It's what I'm frankly shocked about is how few Democrats are actually saying what I think this should be about. This is about saying we have to just shut down, shut down the government because our entire government has been perverted and corrupted by a madman. The issue in my view, is not the, the people who are going to get kicked off of Medicare. That's a horrible issue. But I don't think that is why Medicare and Medicaid, the health care subsidies, I don't think that's the reason to shut down the government. The reason to shut down is our government has been taken over by a madman and there's absolutely insanity coming out of the White House on a daily basis. And if the government can be shut down, if nothing else, it would slow his destruction of our entire society down a little.
