Readers continue to react to my analysis of the recently terminated shutdown:
I say we shouldn’t reward 45’s behavior of taking the country hostage til he gets what he wants. What will be next? He shuts everything down til ACA is repealed?
I’ve seen this remark in a number of venues, and I completely agree.
But there’s more: the loss of tethering our government to rationality. The article referenced in this post talked about the slashing and even abolition of research offices in the federal government, and now we’re reaping the wind blowing out of that major mistake. In a sane world in which Rep Newt Gingrich (R-GA), responsible for that slashing, was laughed out of Congress, rather than made (failed) Speaker of the House, Trump’s Wall would have been subjected to an analysis by entities inside and outside of government, an intellectual debate would have ensued, and eventually a conclusion reached. The Wall would have been retired from consideration and we’d be moving quietly onwards towards better solutions to the illegal immigration problem.
I do love my delusions.
Instead, the Republicans killed off the government research centers that came up with “liberal conclusions” (read: answers they didn’t like), and then pursued discredited ideas such as the Laffer Curve. Fortunately, the Republicans have left their fingerprints on all their mistakes, and the voters do have some memory. To take what sounds like an extreme example, but isn’t, if we lose Miami to climate-change induced flooding in the next few years, the Democrats need to pin it on the Republicans. Not for political advantage, but because without that assignation of responsibility to a mode of thought (a word I type with some trepidation), our nation is doomed to ruination and dismemberment.
And I’m quite serious about that.
Another reader:
They [the Democrats – HW] need to respond with their position. No we will never fund a wall, but here is what we will do.
This dick measuring Pelosi is doing with Trump, with her cult cheering her on is just ego, and of course a waste of time.
Trump won’t accept their offer of course, but they at the very least need to do this for optics, because in time the public is going to see the shutdown as the result of both parties, instead of the toddler in the oval office.
The shutdown is, shall we say, in abeyance at the moment, because it was terminated not by the signing of appropriations legislation, but by a continuing resolution. I don’t agree that Pelosi is grandstanding for ego’s sake, but I suppose that’s a judgment to be made by history. To my eye, she’s taking down a dangerous opponent using the tools she’s honed for a decade or so – or possibly when she was raising her five kids.
But I agree with my reader, the Democrats need to put together and message a strong alternative response. Readers know my suggestion from earlier on this thread, which I’ve sent out to my reps.
So all that said, what does the next three weeks hold? I expect the Democrats to work on appropriations legislation sans funds for the wall, but with higher allocations for general border security. In addition, they may work on an alternative solution to illegal immigration and present it to the electorate.
The Republicans will blather about, waiting for Trump to lead them.
And Trump? Supposedly, he carries grudges for years, but this is new territory for him, and he’s an old man. He may decide to quietly sign the appropriations legislation brought to him in the next three weeks and use his “national emergency” powers to move money from the military to border security for building the wall. Democrats will scream, Republicans will reply that Obama did the same.
And in two years, voters will pounce and Senate Majority Leader Senator McConnell (R-KY) will lose his big-title job, and perhaps his other job as well. Years of irrationality will shred the Republican Party, and Trump’s base will feel betrayed by their country.
The dangers of letting irrationality dominate the country comes to the fore.
