1/7/19
The Trump administration’s shutdown of the federal government over the last two weeks is a synecdoche for the way it has run the federal government over the last two years. They blundered into it almost by accident, without any understanding of what they are doing nor any plan for success. Just as Trump did not expect to win the election and neglected to plan for his transition, he shut down the government on a whim, after right-wing media complained about his plan to approve a government funding bill. Nobody in the administration had a clear understanding of just what a shutdown would entail. First Trump shut down the government, and then the Trump administration started looking into what effect this would have. It’s likely the administration was lulled into complacency by a previous, abbreviated shutdown that took place in early 2018. This interruption in funding lasted only a few days and had barely any effect. Perhaps the administration assumed a longer shutdown would work the same way, but, you know, more of it. The impending reality of millions of Americans going hungry and homeless is just one aspect of the horrors that await us. At some point, the shutdown will impinge upon Trump’s C-suite constituency. Employees of the Transportation Security Administration have had to work without pay, but that cannot continue indefinitely. Already, employees at some airports have begun staging sick-outs. At some point, air travel will grind to a halt, and with it large segments of the economy.
Facing an economic cataclysm, Trump appears to have no endgame in mind. He told Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer he would “look foolish” if he agreed to reopen the government without extracting concessions. But Democrats have no incentive to give him any. Voters in general tend to blame the president for problems. This holds true even when Congress is responsible for the problems, but it especially holds true when the president personally engineers the calamity and announces beforehand on camera that he won’t blame the other side for it. The anti-immigration right does not oppose the wall, they simply don’t consider it especially useful as a tool to reduce illegal immigration. (Because it is not.) Just how long will it take for Trump to figure out that he is probably not the president who is going to break America’s long-standing immigration policy deadlock? Probably longer than he can bear the political pain that his shutdown is bringing upon himself and his party. Democrats might be tempted to hand Trump a token ransom to end the very real pain of the shutdown. But to do so would invite further hostage-taking. All they can do in the meantime is continue to send Trump bills to reopen the government immediately, and wait for the president to realize the political blood on the floor is his own.