No Wall, A Cave, And Schadenfreude
The longest government shutdown in US history has finally ended. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Trump thought it was such a good idea he’s threatening to do it all over again in three weeks time if he doesn’t get his way.
Clearly this is no way to run a country, or anything else for that matter. So how did we get here ? Well, the Trump government shutdown came out of the blue when he suddenly refused to sign an annual spending bill agreed by both Republicans and Democrats despite previously having indicated he would.
His abrupt change of heart happened because Ann Coulter, darling of the rabid-right, had called Donald a “gigantic douchebag” for failing to deliver on his nonsensical campaign wall promise. Even worse, conservative radio rabble-rouser Rush Limbaugh also started bellowing that Trump was a bit of a wall-wuss. For such a self-professed ‘strong-man’, Trump’s ego is absurdly fragile.
Thoroughly chastened he then refused to sign the previously agreed spending bill, insisting on a new one which included $5.7 billion for his ‘wall’. His arguments for it’s necessity were wildly exaggerated and full of easily-disproved lies. In any case the amount demanded (apparently randomly plucked from thin air) wasn’t anywhere near enough for the grandiose edifice Trump had promised his red-hats. To any rational observer, none of this made any sense.
In the fevered fantasy-world of MAGA, however, and in the context of Trump’s Reality-Show presidency, an idiotic fight over a symbolic wall that was never meant to be real did have purpose. It fueled the chaos where Trump feels most comfortable; it distracted attention from the tightening noose of the Mueller investigation; it created the reality-show drama he revels in; it was red meat for his racist base and, as if all of that wasn’t enough, it protected his delicate ego from any more of Ms Coulter’s mean-girl tweets.
Life is too short for us to dissect here every crazy moment of Trump’s 35-day shutdown, all of his lies, boasts, flip-flops, and provocations. If you were following the news you’ll have had enough by now. It was Trump’s usual unhinged behavior but on steroids.
Out of all the nonsense he spouted, though, there’s one word in particular that will come back to haunt him. The word is Cave. ‘I won’t Cave’, he bragged loudly. ‘No Cave’, he boastfully tweeted. Over and over again. But that’s exactly what he did. He backed-down. He crumbled under pressure. He ‘Caved’. Bigly !
The government will now open again without the Democrats conceding a single cent for Trump’s Wall. It will open on the terms they offered Trump from day one. The whole shutdown has been exposed as a cruel and totally unnecessary Trump stunt from which he has gained absolutely nothing. An abject failure for him in the court of public opinion as polls clearly show.
Unsurprisingly, Trump has attempted to distract from his humiliating ‘Cave’ by threatening that if he doesn’t get his way within three weeks he will either shut the government down again or take emergency powers. It’s no surprise to anyone that he is dimwitted enough to consider this but actually carrying out his threats would be a folly of truly Trumpian proportions.
Another shutdown so soon could very easily result in strikes and serious civil unrest. The public simply would not tolerate it. And declaring an emergency where there clearly isn’t one would be a desperate and doomed gesture too, guaranteed to be challenged and stopped dead in it’s tracks by the courts.
Schadenfreude is a splendid German word meaning the malicious pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another. Not nice, perhaps, but a very human response.
Having spent 35 grim days watching the outrageous pomposity, arrogance, bombast, and posturing of Trump on TV, and having seen the harm he’s done to decent working people and the country to serve his own vanity, I think anyone may be forgiven for enjoying the spectacle of his very public humiliation. A little Schadenfreude today is entirely understandable and excusable. .
Less understandable or excusable is Trump himself (but that’s nothing new). You’d expect anyone even remotely rational to have learned something from suffering such a catastrophic fail, but with Trump still babbling about more shutdowns or taking emergency powers it looks very much like he hasn’t.
So that’s how things stand today in Trump’s United States of Uncertainty. No ‘Wall’, a ‘Cave’, and some well-deserved Schadenfreude
Internet Writer
(cartoon by Adam Zyglis)
