What next...?
This seems to have moved from an issue over the spending bill by Trump moving it to a battle he has to win.
The Democrats see it as a "we won't be held to ransom because he'll just do it again" issue and Trump has moved from needing a wall (paid for by Mexico of course) to needing a wall NOW. That is despite the statistics showing there is less border incursion than previously.
It seems like Trump is determined to force this issue in an autocratic way and has yet, two years in, any concept of consensual adaptive politics.
So where does this end? At the moment there are 800,000 furloughed federal employees without pay.
Trump is now tweeting about a steel wall which sounds more like a fence.... there are plenty of fences along this area of border already. Getting one over the mountainous area will be difficult. So will this become a continuous fence? In any event, he hasn't yet acquired the land he needs to build this or indeed dealt with animal migratory patterns...
Fundamentally, it will just move the problems to the sea anyway because... well, the wall ends at the sea and then you just get in a boat and go round it...
Consensus seems to be that Trump can't use emergency powers to do this.
All polls are putting this at Trumps door (despite his tweeting that he is supported). So what is the outcome?
Theories please....
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Shutdowns make everyone super nervous. Trump may be getting the blame for now but he has 'compromised' with the fence instead of the wall and democrats will be nervous that the blame shifts to them. The fact the fence is still a fvcking stupid impractical idea is neither here nor there. The people who matter here (voters (mainly white working class) who swung from Democrat to Trumpian) are bigger on what they feel than what is true.
So it's a classic who blinks first. Trump was elected on the wall promise. At some point he might calculate he can take the 'higher ground' and concede so that the shutdown stops 'to end the suffering of ordinary working people'. He will then highlight every single crime committed by a mexican (whether legal or not) and shout 'this rape/murder/robbery happened BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS BLOCKED MY WALL'.
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WW3. HTH.
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Interestingly the poster Trump put on twitter (obviously his artist isn't furloughed) was of his steel fence...
What we seem to be arguing over now.... is putting more fence where fence already is...
CC, I agree.... but that is what he does anyway. Long term alienation of Hispanics is a real issue for the GOP.
There seems to be a tweet missing from his feed. I am sure there was one saying people furloughed will suck it up... but that is gone..
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It's not like Hispanics were exactly flocking to the GOP pre-trump but yeah it's a problem for them with the shifting demographics in the US.
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If you are interested in this stuff and haven't already watched it then have a look at American Chaos (Jim Stern talking to Trump voters in the run up the election). In some ways they are a more (racially and economically) diverse bunch than you might expect but there is a really striking similarity in their sense (real or imagined) of exclusion and of their problems being ignored. Ironically its the same sort of sense of being being furious at being thrown to the wolves as the 'acceptable price' that I remember from growing up in a working class community under Thatcher.
It's a really powerful sentiment that he has tapped into and his supporters will be very slow to abandon their anger (and so their support for him).
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On the same note.... look at the video of Misha Collins attending a Trump Rally pre-election. He recently said he'd be too frightened to do the same thing now.
Do you follow Scott Stedman or have you read his book?
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Will take a look at Scott Stedman thanks (I am only very vaguely aware of him).
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Trump has to see that he is going to lose this one, but he probably doesn't care. It takes the attention away from the 17 different investigations into him and his family that are currently underway.
When people are talking about the wall they are not talking about the Russia investigation, and that suits him just fine.
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I think there would be an immediate legal challenge to an attempt to use emergency powers or use the military... I don't think he'd try.
I think that is bluff. It only arose because someone asked him the question at one of his many press conferences.
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In the end, enough Republican congress critters will defect and pass a budget with enough votes to override a veto.
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