Today, on the 35th day of the shutdown, Donald Trump announced a temporary reopening of the government for three weeks. And no, he didn’t get any funding for the wall. He totally caved.
Why? Could it be because he already lost a handful of Republican Senators, who yesterday voted against Trump as a warning shot that if the shutdown went on much longer Trump would find himself humiliated by a veto-proof bipartisan budget bill being passed by Congress? Well, probably not.
Was it because his base started crumbling, once Trump’s temper tantrum started affecting their wallets?
Or because this is actually hurting the economy and reducing the security of the US more than his silly imagined illegal alien invasion.
Or because he wasn’t going to be able to make his campaign speech State of the Union address? You know how much he loves pomp and pageantry.
Well, it is probably more likely because of something that happened this morning to business people trying to fly:
Pressure to end the shutdown increased on Friday after air traffic was delayed at two New York-area airports — LaGuardia and Newark — in addition to Philadelphia International Airport due to staffing issues at a Federal Aviation Administration regional air traffic control center.
I’m willing to bet that even though he said this was temporary, and threatened to declare a national emergency if he doesn’t get money for his stupid wall, there is no way he would dare to shut down the government again in three weeks. Mark my words.
Trump loves to claim he’s tough, but he always gives in.
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I have somewhat different opinion on Mitch Mcconnell. Is he a weasel? yes. Is he terrible human? most probably yes. Is he compromised by Russians? probably. Is he complicit in Trump’s bad impulses? yes to some extent.
But he is one shrewd son of a bitch and politician. He knows what he wants, and he will get it and makes the best of resources. If he is in trouble with links to Russia (most likely via NRA), he knows how to outsmart them and bite them in ass.
He knows one way or another, Trump and most of his cronies (Pence and others) are either going to implode (either via Mueller, or elections, or self). So he has x years in power to get his things done. And he hates Trump and Russia (for most likely black mailing him), and he is going to get rid of them (preferrably with elections, so he is off the hook from base). So he plays along with Trump many times to make him (Trump) looks asshole (not much effort required) and also to somehow makes his approval go down. Mitch will make sure that Trump lose badly in elections so that he (mitch) gets off the hook. He will outlive Trump in power.
Mitch played Trump into shutdown I believe only to make Trump look bad. While Trump and his base thinks Mitch is on their side, but in reality he is screwing them.
I think Trump is going to declare emergency and will be stopped by courts so he can bad mouth courts and rile up base.
I hate this “Trump Caved” Trump “chickened out”, “got owned”. Trump is despicable, we all know that, and he is a bully and a gloater. But we don’t have to act like that. There were no winners in this shutdown and there are no winners now. But just between us, ain’t Nancy something?
And aren’t we lucky that the newbies did not get their way and unseat Pelosi. And I hope they realize now, that age and experience are valuable assets and not to be derided and set aside. Not that they had a huge chance of doing so. She handled them like a virtuoso as well. Well done indeed!
And if he tries this again, the TSA and air traffic control, just need to call in sick. All of them. This would have ended weeks ago, if they had.
I heard, but have not verified, that 20% of the air traffic control people are eligible for retirement. I have a feeling that a lot of them are going back to work and submitting their retirement requests before he has the chance to do this again.
I wonder if ending the shutdown was more about his personal finances.
I don’t think you can draw strong conclusions from this one act. He hasn’t faced professional politicians of this caliber. He usually bullies other businesspeople. But it may be a sign of things to come.
I’d like to second Mitch’s post. I am appalled by just about everything President Trump has done or tried to do. On the rare occasion when he makes a good decision to reconsider an extremist position, we should celebrate that, not sneer at him as some kind of weakling for “backing down.” If he only gets reviled by those who disagree with him no matter what he does, he has absolutely no reason to compromise at all – ever. And neither do his followers.
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