If you analyze Trump’s wall speech, and put it in its proper context, you get something like this:
- The wall issue incorporates two of the primary themes of the Trump campaign: (a) the world, and Mexico in particular, is full of evildoers from whom only I can provide America with protection; and (b) I am the world’s greatest negotiator, as seen weekly on “The Apprentice.” No wonder it’s a point of such importance to him! If he fails, he has undercut the fundamental premises of his presidency.
- He made a tactical mistake by attaching more value to the wall than it merits, which means the Democrats can trade it for something meaningful to them, and the country.
- He initially tried to sell the wall to the voters by taking the federal workers, whom he described as “Democrats,” and the American public hostage. The country is only too familiar with that tactic at this stage of his presidency, so it isn’t working.
- Having failed with hostage taking, the speech was an attempt to create a different kind of leverage by getting the American people to pressure the Democrats. Unfortunately for him, he just lost an election that revolved (at his insistence) around this point, and he took two years to decide that the wall was worth a shutdown. America has already fully digested this issue, and doesn’t agree with him. In any event, he had already undercut his message of Democratic intransigence by publicly owning the shutdown well before it occurred.
- The speech was just recycled material from the campaign, delivered in a manner and from a location that didn’t suit his style.
- Pelosi and Schumer were wooden, too, but they made their point: the most pressing issue is the shutdown, not the wall.
- The support of the base isn’t enough, by itself, to get him the wall, and he has no interest in reaching out to anyone else. His failures on this issue show the limitations of his brand of politics.
- I won’t bother fact checking the speech. You already know that it was full of exaggerations and absurdities.
- So where does this go now? GOP support for the shutdown is starting to erode. He could go the emergency route and trade an immediate political problem for a bigger political and legal problem later, he could accept a tiny face-saving concession and lie about it to the base, or he could agree to a larger deal in which he trades something of genuine value for the wall.
- John Roberts and Mitch McConnell will not appreciate it if he picks the emergency option; the ensuing litigation will damage their interests regardless of the outcome. Since Trump almost never takes the long view, that probably won’t matter to him.