I’ve seen quite a bit of conspiratorial thinking on the left recently about what really is motivating the Republicans to keep the government shut down. Some see it as a coordinated strategy between the White House and Congress to pursue some anti-government ideological goal. Others see it as an effort to cripple the FBI and Department of Justice as they pursue criminal investigations of many prominent party members and administration figures. Still others see it as more of a White House-driven effort to simply distract from the Russia investigation. For Greg Sargent, it’s an attempt by “Trump and his GOP enablers [to proceed] as if the 2018 elections never happened.”
In my opinion, people are overthinking this. There is no grand strategy and there’s no actual coordination between Trump and Republican congressional leaders other than a kind of haphazard effort to develop a common message. If Trump has any legitimate beef, it’s that he was misled by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan into a belief that he could get his wall-funding during the lame-duck session of Congress after the midterms. I think he was snookered. I suspect that he feels like they lied to him.
Nonetheless, he signed off on continuing resolution to keep the government funding through the lame duck session and into early this year. And then he was criticized by his anti-immigrant base severely enough that he decided to rescind his support for the deal he had made. This is the only reason the government is shut down.
Overall, I agree with Sargent’s assessment of the situation. The GOP is asking for concessions when they ought to be offering them. The media are not being consistent enough in describing the disparity between the administration’s absolutist demands and the quite reasonable insistence by Democrats that they won’t give Trump what he couldn’t get when his party had total control of Congress.
But McConnell isn’t orchestrating some grand plan. He’s actually angry with the president and wants no part of this battle. And Trump may console himself that he’s keeping the spotlight off of the new Democratic House and the Russia investigation, but that has nothing to do with why he decided to take this stand. He feels like he can’t lose the support of his xenophobic base and survive, and that’s why he’d rather be seen fighting for a wall even if it actually causes him to crash through his previous floor of support. It’s another miscalculation on his part.
It’s also training Republican lawmakers to break with him. First they’ll break with him on his wall, and then it will be easier for them to break with him on impeachment. That’s the main risk he’s running by inflicting this battle on the GOP.
And always lurking in the background is the fact that he will eventually have to give in to “Nancy”. I think that will be the thing which propels this whole mess much further into the future than will be necessary.
He will lose, in a very public fashion, to a powerful and outspoken woman. And that will simply be more than he will be able to endure.
. . . Gave in to “Nancy”. Lost “in a very public fashion, to a powerful and outspoken woman.”
I was briefly afraid that you were going to use “strategy” and “White House” in the same sentence in discussing this administration. You’re safe.
As for Pelosi and Schumer, Trump failed to realize he was not in a dominant position with them; he needed democratic votes to replace the republican votes he should have been able to get. But instead of coming to them in a real bipartisan, conciliatory manner, hat in hand, to help him, he came in as the big swinging dick, beating them over the head when he had no leverage to do so. Which makes his manhandling at the hands of a “girl” even more poignantly painful. If Trump were smart, he would have seen Pelosi and Schumer as potential allies in exchange for stuff they wanted, and use the opportunity to work with them to broaden his own base.
But the person Trump really should be mad at is himself. He’s been the engineer driving this train off the cliff, and refused to stop when others told him he was heading over. Trump doesn’t understand the politics, doesn’t really understand the issue and prefer to see it exclusively as an opportunity to rev up his bigoted base, and most of all, has to be the worst president ever in terms of political negotiating. A capable politician would not be in this position right now, and a halfway decent one would have gotten some if not most of what he wanted in ways that his own base would see it as a win.
McConnell and now McCarthy are going to have to find a way to throw the brakes on the Trump train. By somehow taking Trump to the woodshed with either the threat of impeachment and conviction or just doing it. Otherwise, they are going over the cliff with him, and at this rate, the shellacking they faced in 2018 will look like child’s play compared to what’s likely in store for them for 2020, at this point.
The donald considers those 2 as his employees. From day one no one in the GOP stood up to him. So now he will never listen to advise from them. They are just passengers in the clown car.
Otherwise, they are going over the cliff with him, and at this rate, the shellacking they faced in 2018 will look like child’s play compared to what’s likely in store for them for 2020, at this point.
Sure hope you are right but it seems Americans have a very short memory and Trump will make sure many distractions happen between now and then…
Why would this crisis be any different from others? Conspiracy explanations are phenomena of opportunity like looting or mushrooms after rain. This shut down was able to be gamed out very simply from the start. He can’t/won’t back down. Even if Trump’s pride and ego weren’t the main factor. It’s death for him politically. Democrats will hold out for the reason one never negotiates with terrorists. Also, Pelosi solidly holds the high ground blame-wise in the polls. Also, Trump lies. His word can’t be trusted. The only thing that will break this jam is for a deus ex machina like maybe a veto override. At some point, The turtle will have to peek out and do some snapping. Probably when rich people can’t fly, which will be soon.
Of course not. To have one would mean that Trump actually has to commit to something and that is just a
wallbridge too far.The only ways of moving past Donald’s self-imposed crisis are:
Mitch can yell that he supports Donald until he’s blue in the face. However, Donald will veto his own bills if Ann Coulter tells him to. Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer aren’t going to treat Donald like an honest negotiator because he isn’t one. Mitch’s favored line is that he will only support what Donald supports, but that’s bullshit and should really be thought of as a delaying tactic.