Shutdown Politics

I was wrong about Trump's commitment to the wall. I thought that when the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives Trump would see the hopelessness of his shutdown position and sign off on the Dem proposal to fund the government through September, except for the Department of Homeland Security, which would be funded by a continuing resolution through February, giving the White House and Congress a month to reach a deal on border security.

That's not how it's playing out. Trump is going all in with his cracker base, which is a poor strategy, because, as we learned from the midterms, crackers do not constitute a viable basis for a national government. As David Leonhardt noted in a column the other day, "Democrats won the national popular vote in the House races by almost nine percentage points. That margin is smashing — larger, by comparison, than in any presidential race since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election landslide."

The polling on the shutdown is even worse than the blue wave landslide. A majority blames Trump, while 32 percent blame the Democrats.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a cagey operator, knows this. That's why I figured the shutdown would be over by now. But apparently McConnell is reduced to riding along on Trump's coattails. His passive position cannot be maintained for too much longer, as Peter Baker reveals in his excellent frontpager, "Trump’s National Address Escalates Border Wall Fight":

House Democrats planned to approve individual spending bills this week that were intended to reopen closed departments one at a time in hopes of putting Republicans on the defensive, but Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, has said he would not put any bill on the floor without Mr. Trump’s explicit support.

Senate Democrats took to the floor on Tuesday to pressure Mr. McConnell and vowed to block consideration of other legislation until the government is reopened.

Mr. McConnell fired back, noting the 2006 legislation. “Maybe the Democratic Party was for secure borders before they were against them,” he said. “Or maybe they’re just making it up as they go along. Or maybe they are that dead-set on opposing this particular president on any issue, for any reason, just for the sake of opposing him.”

But two more Republicans, Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, spoke out on Tuesday in favor of reopening the government while negotiations over border security continue. “I think we can walk and chew gum,” Ms. Murkowski told reporters.

Ms. Capito expressed frustration with the shutdown and “how useless it is,” indicating that she might support reopening the government while wall talks continue. “I mean, I think I could live with that, but let’s see what he says tonight,” she said before the speech.

That makes five Republican senators who have expressed such a position, which if combined with a unanimous Democratic caucus would make a majority to reopen the government if Mr. McConnell were to allow a vote.

Allies of the president warned fellow Republicans to stand with Mr. Trump. “If we undercut the president, that’s the end of his presidency and the end of our party,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Fox News after the speech.

We can only hope.

The wall shutdown will shortly surpass the longest government shutdown on record, the 21-day 1995-1996 Gingrich shutdown over Medicare funding. That shutdown cemented Clinton's reelection in 1996.