Ignominy

Donald Trump has maneuvered himself into conceding to Democrats in his unsuccessful campaign to get the Congress to pay for his top priority: the border wall he pledged Mexico would fund. His only alternative is another partial government shutdown. To avoid that, he has to accept a compromise he says he doesn’t like. This is not only defeat. It is defeat with dishonor, shame, embarrassment, humiliation, ignominy.

It is also a good thing. Elections have consequences. November’s put the Republicans in the minority in the House and handed the gavel to Nancy Pelosi, who has proven that she can wrangle the Democratic caucus as well as ever anyone could. There has been no sign of defection. The Republicans, however, turned on Trump and made him an offer he is unable to refuse. The compromise provides a minimal length of enhanced fencing that falls far short of Trump’s ambitions.

He is saying that he’ll build the wall anyway–he even claims to already be doing it. I suppose he can scrounge a bit of money here and a bit of reprogramming there, but every time he does he is likely to end up in court, or at least offending one constituency or another. Ditto for a declaration of national emergency, which many Republicans oppose. Splintering his Senate caucus is not going to help the Republican cause. Trump’s border wall has turned into a political debacle worse than his failure to repeal Obamacare.

He has no one to blame but himself. He arguably had a better deal on offer months ago but chose to pull the rug out from under the Senate Republicans, who had agreed to more money for the border wall than he is getting now as well as some relief for undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children. That might even have given the Republicans a claim on Hispanic votes, which the deal he is about to sign into law does not. It is a lose lose lose: no wall, relatively little money, no deferred action for childhood arrivals.

Trump’s claque won’t notice. They’ll give him credit for trying. And where can they turn for any better from their perspective? The flim-flam president has captured 35% or a bit more of the country with his patter. But his rallies are not attracting the crowds they used to and he is losing relatively independent voters with every shrunken refund check attributable to his giant tax cut for the wealthy.

Looming on Trump’s horizon is the Special Counsel investigation, which has now convinced a Federal judge that Trump Campaign Chair Paul Manafort lied about meeting with a Russian linked to Moscow’s intelligence services. That and other lies cancel the Special Counsel’s promise of support in limiting Manafort’s sentence on other charges. It is hard to imagine reasons for the lies other than hope for a presidential pardon, which could still be forthcoming.

Defeat of Trump’s wall fantasy was ignominious for the President. A pardon for Manafort would be ignominious for the United States.