Not that anything I post here will ever change the world but I've been trying to think of what the endgame might be for the government shutdown.
Ezra Klein says Trump doesn't care about The Wall. If he really did, sez Klein, he would get it the way most politicians get something they want: They dicker and offer the other side something in return…
Trump doesn't care about the wall. He cares about being seen fighting for the wall. From that perspective — Trump's perspective — Tuesday night's speech was a success. His base saw him fighting for them. And that may have been all he really wanted.
Trump cares about being seen as a winner, which he seems to believe is in tension with compromising. His sense of negotiations is fundamentally zero-sum: One side has to lose and one side has to win. If Trump gives Democrats anything they can present as a win, he will look like a loser. As such, he can't give them the concessions that might get him the wall because what he'd be giving up — his image as a winner — is more important to him than the policy he'd be gaining.
I would amend Mr. Klein's theory a tiny bit. I think Trump desperately wants The Wall because if he gets it on his terms, he looks like a big winner who gets everything he wants or promises. He just doesn't want The Wall on anyone else's terms.
Klein's line about Trump's concept of negotiations — "One side has to lose and one side has to win" — struck a note with me. I've run into too many people on the business side of show business who play that way. The object of a negotiation is not to arrive at a deal that works for both parties. The objective is the deal that makes them happy and you unhappy. In a way, it's more about power than money and about making (or keeping) you subservient and afraid of them.
That's what politics in this country has become. The next time a Supreme Court seat has to be filled, most Democrats want the person who will most reliably vote as per the Democratic line and most Republicans want the person who is guaranteed to always vote with the G.O.P. Somewhere out there, there are folks who have the proper experience in Law to sit on the Highest Court and also have open minds. They'd look at each question in a non-partisan manner and be a true Swing Vote. Almost no one wants that person even though we all know that's what a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to be.
The other day, I got into a little verbal scuffle with an acquaintance who is pro-Wall. Ostensibly, he's for stopping illegal immigration and drug importation but he's not open to expanding E-Verify or increased scanning for drugs at airports, which is where most of them come in. That's because Trump is not at the moment demanding those and this is not to most people, a debate over whether The Wall is the best way to deal with the problem. We're not even really debating whether there is a problem.
This is really just a battle over whether Trump can get whatever he wants and the Democrats can't stop him. In a saner context, it would be settled with a compromise and maybe, ultimately, it will. But compromises can result in a win-win situation and Trump doesn't want that. He wants a win-lose with himself in the first position. I hope there are Traffic Controllers when I fly to Santa Cruz at the end of this month.