The author posits three scenarios:
1] Dems cave
2] Compromise
3] Trump caves
He then claims Trump wins with his base in all three.
However in my opinion:
#1, is an obvious win for Trump's base.
In #2, unless Trump gets all $5.6B without giving-up anything DACA, I'm not sure all his hardcore will buy it.
In #3 I don't see all of Trump's base supporting him, regardless of the case the author attempts to make.
Its not really a matter of whether Trump caves or not. Its a matter of whether GOP Senators cave. If they cave, then its all over for the Donald. His Presidency is over...his reelection is over. Its over now. We won't have to wait till 2020. He becomes a political lame duck, an acknowledged political liability that does not even have a two year clock attached to it. It would actually be better for Donald Duck if he caved before the GOP Senators do. At least Donald could claim some sort of come to Jesus, common sense enlightenment out of it. Gardener and Collins have already caved. Do we really think Mitt Romney won't? That leaves the Dems one vote short of passage of the House Bills in the Senate...two at most if Joe Manchin decides to vote be a No vote on the House Bills.
Once the GOP Senators cave the first time, it gets easier and easier to cave after that. McConnell has been put in a box, a room with no doors or windows. That is a very odd place for Mitchy-poo and he is not likely to fair well in it. He is surely not likely to be inclined to stay there for long.
In addition I am not convinced that Trump's loyal base will be anywhere near as punishing of the Donald as the Rush Limbaugh's and Ann Coulters would have him believe when it comes to this whole Wall mess.
The one thing that Donald has truly miscalculated in this is that Limbaugh and Coulter are no more principled than any other part of contemporary MSM with regard to ratings and trying to keep the who wins and who loses aspect of any political issue running. It is patently absurd to claim all the nasty things about MSM that the Right claims for them and then look at the Limbaugh's and the Coulters as some sort of saints somehow hovering above it all. They aren't.
Limbaugh and Coulter speak for themselves and nobody else, just as any other media personality with a microphone or a TV Camera speaks for themselves. They have constituencies of 1, themselves. Their goals and aspirations are entirely personal, their personal wealth and power. In that, they are much like Trump himself. Donald just does not see it for what it is.
His base is going to go where I ask you if he does not come through with this idiot Wall? Most are already saying nobody believed Mexico would ever pay for it or any part of it (ie. the things Donald's base are after are beyond this wall). His base turns to who if they abandon Donald? We have already established that there is only one Donald. The New Right only has one shot at this and it is fading fast.
No. While it is hard for Donald to believe in anybody, the bond between him and his base is much stronger than this one issue of the Wall. He can't see that either apparently. The more I think about it, the more laughable the whole notion that the base rises and falls on the fate of this Wall becomes.