Posted on 01/26/2019 6:34:35 AM PST by Kaslin
If there’s anything the Trump presidency should have taught people in the opinion business, it is to pause before overreacting in the short term. As such, I will temporarily shelve my gut response to the arrangement that has been made to re-open the government.
I’ve spent the last few weeks warning that the Democrat lure—“Re-open the government, and then we’ll really, really negotiate in good faith”—is a trap that should be ignored. But then I’ve spent the last two years trusting that the President knows what he’s doing, an assumption that has held up well in most cases. I deployed it this week as he agreed to delay the State of the Union address, figuring he was engaged in the psychology of brief acquiescence in order to push even harder at the border bargaining table.
Well, apparently not just yet.
The President Friday agreed to a temporary funding measure that sends the suffering furloughed federal employees back to work, and he did it without receiving a dime of wall funding.
Social media exploded with characterizations of this as caving under pressure. Some were the laments of frustrated Trump supporters; others were the gleeful smirks of his detractors.
It would be wise for both groups to take a breath. His critics are thrilled to see an example of surrender; some in his base are mortified. Across that landscape, a question should arise: Does everybody think he has lost his passion for wall funding? Do we really believe that after years of railing so hard on this signature issue, that he is going allow himself to get owned by Nancy Pelosi?
There must be a plan here. We just don’t know what it is.
I don’t know that the plan is smart. I don’t know that the plan will work. But I would bet that we’ll know a lot more in three weeks than we know now, and some of today’s tweets may not age well.
Consider the possibilities. Perhaps he believed—with good reason—that there was simply no way Democrats were going to cough up the wall funding he wants. That would mean additional weeks, maybe months of shutdown, every day festooned with hand-wringing coverage of the intensifying plight of out-of-work government employees
This puts them back to work, freeing up media time to cover the actual negotiations. If those are as futile as some (like me) believe them to be, we will wind up right back at square one on February 15.
So then what?
One of the reasons I warned against re-opening the government is that it would invite a second cathartic shutdown countdown and a second wave of media panic that would bring the whole thing back to the front of the public mind. Admit it; the shutdown was losing stigma every day. That added pressure on Democrats to yield on the border dollars since they didn’t really have a strong shutdown-angst card to play.
Maybe that was about to change. The Friday stories of airport delays rippling across the Northeast may have been a signal of harsher shutdown consequences on the horizon. Average Americans were not doubled over with shutdown anxiety so far, but wait until every newscast led with families with screaming kids stranded at the airport because they can’t get to Grandma’s in New Jersey.
That won’t happen now, and there may be benefits to that.
But down the road, today’s give needs to be balanced with a whole lot of take. The willingness to open the government had better not come with willingness to buckle on the kind of border security millions of Trump voters are counting on.
A re-opened government does not exactly leave Democrats stung by immediate Art-of-the-Deal brilliance. They may well dig in harder now, joining some crestfallen Trump supporters in the belief that he has been worn down.
It might be wise to put a pin in that and see what mid-February brings. Expect the next three weeks to be filled with more of the familiar rhetoric of both sides: the President insisting on a wall, the Democrats mocking it.
Then, after three weeks of spinning tires, Trump will be able to face the cameras and say “I reopened the government. I gave them what they wanted. They said they would bargain in good faith. They lied. I have no other choice but to declare an emergency and begin protecting the border myself.”
His enemies will squeal, his fan base will say all is forgiven, and then the whole battle moves to the courts. That’s only one of several possibilities, but it seems more likely than the knee-jerk reaction that his spine has liquefied.
So as the news sinks in of today’s seeming concession, review the last two years and its long list of stories that have changed over three days, or even three hours. Three weeks is an eternity.
Sometimes,the art of the deal is letting your enemies think they’ve won......
“... it is to pause before overreacting...”
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Take that deep breath, and............
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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GyG@PlanetWTF?
SEMPER!TRUMP.45!
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Trump will have to use the DOD to build the wall.
Judges will try to stop it.
Trump: “We’re not stopping”
That’s how it’s going to play out.
Or, the wall doesn’t get built.
Sometimes,the art of the deal is letting your enemies think they’ve won......
Trump has never stopped fighting against all the evil hordes and despite all the white-flag-waving concern trolls who have no stomach for an actual fight...they drive their sofas and claim how easy it is to win any battle while safely out of way of the bombs and bullets whizzing around.
The swamp /media complex boxed him in. They have a lot more tools at their disposal than we realized [as always it seems]
Half of FR shows their lack of understanding of Trump every time. Some never learn.
We’ve seen their game. They will repeat it, thinking it is a winning strategy. Time to analyze, reassess, adapt and overcome.
What is the misunderstanding you speak of?
If most Americans were forced to choose between (1) having air travel and a coast guard and (2) a wall, of course they’re gonna choose the former — even though most of them also want a wall. Their choice reflects a part of human nature — preferring short term comfort — that the Democrats exploit but that discouraged conservatives like Coulter don’t recognize. But if we keep fighting this for the long haul, we’ll prevail because a better part of human nature detests globalism and multi-culturalism.
“”I reopened the government. I gave them what they wanted. They said they would bargain in good faith. They lied. I have no other choice but to declare an emergency and begin protecting the border myself.””
We should have a pool going on this scenario. I say this is what is going to happen... No one with a working brain cell would believe they would keep their word. The president wasn’t about to be suckered into their lie.
If we have been played and it comes to light that President Trump was always in line with the deep state, then there is only one thing left to do.
I trust this is not the case but many a dictator has come to power promising things he never actually meant to pursue.
JoMa
“It might be wise to put a pin in that and see what mid-February brings. Expect the next three weeks to be filled with more of the familiar rhetoric of both sides: the President insisting on a wall, the Democrats mocking it.
Then, after three weeks of spinning tires, Trump will be able to face the cameras and say “I reopened the government. I gave them what they wanted. They said they would bargain in good faith. They lied. I have no other choice but to declare an emergency and begin protecting the border myself.”
Trump is NOT caving, because to do so is to utterly doom him to losing in 2020...and this man has NEVER played to lose.
Hold tight, hand-wringers, Trump will win this. Does anyone seriously believe that he got owned by that senile old crone?
Given the last several incompetent/corrupt AGs with IQs near the boiling point of the liquid helium, President Trump needs an AG capable of going after major Demonicrats on charges of conspiracy, sedition, racketeering, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Forget the National Emergencies Act for how and instead use the Immigration and Nationality Act. 8 U.S.C. §1182(f):
“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrant, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
Trump has spent the last two years pretending he lacks the legal authority to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. When he used this authority, through executive orders, he instantly collapsed after the first injunction from Leftist judges when he should have told them to go to hell.
Mr. Trump: Shut down the border. Use the above-cited authority plus 10 USC 284: Support for counterdrug activities and activities to counter transnational organized crime. This act authorizes the military to erect walls without congressional authorization to deter drugs from entering our country. And also, Mr. Trump, don’t ever let Nancy Pelosi get the better of you again.
You are right. Trump gets the wall built. DACA is done for. and any shutdown will now be blamed on nan and chuckie.
Win Win Win. Let nanie be delusional and think she won. She will do nothing on the wall now that she thinks she can beat Trump. Right out of Art of War playbook.
Months ago the rats offered the President full funding, $25 billion for the wall and he didn’t take it, yet yesterday he capitulated for ZERO dollars and the same DACA deal. Some deal making! Now, I love Trump dearly, but come on!
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