Hi’.
Let’s make it clear. Right now the right is trying desperately — as has become usual with Trump — to salvage this mess of a self-engineered crisis (aka a government shutdown) with arguments like “but the wall is needed”, “it’s just $5bn” and “democrats refuse to budge”. Each of those arguments is laughable by itself (no it’s not; what happened to pork spending; they made three different offers) and I feel like one argument, in all this, is lost on all.
Trump’s argument. And Trump’s argument is: “I got elected for the wall.”
The point is not whether he was elected for a literal, symbolic wall or for his hair, the point is that he was lying to his base from the get go.
As many of his supporters keep noticing, Trump had two years to get the wall and just sat on it. The great deal-maker was convinced to let go last year and again to wait past the midterms to bring it back, at which point he had done nothing to convince anyone to support it, and he was going to give up on it yet again when finally his base got tired of being conned.
The plain truth is Trump himself doesn’t know how to get out of a situation he had never planned for, and he doesn’t know himself what he wants because he never actually wanted to do it. You might remember how, after Trump took the reins, his administration kept hinting at the wall just being a big beautiful metaphor. John Kelly confirmed what was already rather obvious. Most of those working for Trump, in the White House and (sigh) in the Senate, have mocked the wall in every variation imaginable.
It is worth remembering how democrats, a year ago, were on the verge of giving Trump some $25bn(!) for the wall in exchange for ending the DACA crisis that Trump had himself created. Yet Trump let that ship sail, if not made sure it wouldn’t happen, and he on that too is making excuses. Lots, lots of excuses and no wall.
It is also worth pointing out that out of all the compromises touted out there, Pence’s plan was probably the most in favor of Trump, offering $2.5bn for the wall. Yet Trump is making sure it won’t happen either. Because he doesn’t know how much is enough to keep his lie going. Even $20bn might still not be enough.
Here is the point: Trump never intended to deliver the wall.
He never made any effort to, he certainly isn’t making any effort now, and the only reason he is posturing like that is because his supporters have grown tired of that lie. He has his back against his wall, clueless as to what he can accept to end the shutdown, secretly hoping that McConnell will override his veto eventually so he can paint himself as fighting the eviiil establishment. That won’t work. Not just because McConnell is just as clueless and scared of upsetting the same people, and wants for Trump to bite the bullet, but also because Trump’s supporters won’t fall for it this time. They can already tell he is looking for an excuse to game them with some symbolic win to add to his pile of other deceptions — like saying the wall is already being built.
This is just a costly PR campaign on the taxpayer’s dime and at the republican base’s expense.
Trump has no plan to end the shutdown. He never intended to keep his promise and so he doesn’t even know what it would take to keep it, let alone having done any work to make it remotely possible those past two years. Even republicans in Congress won’t vote for the wall: the House voted for it like it voted 60 times to repeal Obamacare (remember how that went), knowing full well it was just theater. They tried to con people yet again, they were just more competent at that than Trump. Months of shutdown won’t change anything.
The wall was a lie. Trump will never deliver.
He is however hell-bent on keeping the con going on everyone’s back, until the nation is too tired and angry at this last-ditch attempt to make excuses.