So.
One of my favorite aphorisms when discussing Trump is the old gem that, when chased by a bear, you don't have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than the guy next to you. Similarly, if you are a con artist, you don't have to be smart, in any objective way. You just have to be smarter than the mark. Donald Trump is a con artist. He is also a few violins short of an orchestra. The conductor doesn't have a baton, if you know what I mean. Dude ain't smart, and I like music analogies. Anyway, can you be a successful con artist if you are stupid? Sure. You just need even dumber marks. Insert George Carlin reference here. How deficient are Trump's followers? Roughly as deficient as the people who fell for the "Trump University" scam. That's pretty fuckin' stupid. And that brings me to "the wall."
One of Trump's central campaign promises was to build a wall across the southern border, and make Mexico pay for it. This was probably the dumbest campaign promise I have ever heard from a mainstream candidate. Trump, bluntly, was a kook who should have been shunted out of the mainstream for being a kook, in which case this type of promise would have been normal for a non-mainstream candidate, but, well, here we are. Anyway, this was lunacy. There was never the slightest chance in Hel (let's go with the Norse here, cuz' I just read Gaiman's Norse Mythology) that any of this would come to fruition. It was a con, and Trump's Nieto phone call demonstrated that he didn't even care about the wall. It was all a con. There was never going to be a wall, and Mexico was never going to pay. The problem for Trump was that he locked himself into his own bullshit.
Somehow, though, a transition was made, and now, we are having a spat about whether or not the US taxpayers-- that'd be us-- are going to have to cough up money for that wall that Mexico was supposed to fund. And Trump wants to shut down the government to make you and me pay for it. (Yes, "me," not, "I." Sorry, but it's time for a pedantic grammar rant. Me is the direct object. You don't use I, just because it comes after you.)
A few points. First, the obvious point that others have raised is that you win a shutdown by getting the other side to take the blame, and Donald Trump, Very Stable Genius, went into that meeting with Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Useless Dipshit demanding the blame. Huh? I'll get to that.
My bigger point is... why aren't we talking about the fact that Trump is asking us, not Mexico to pay? And that brings me back to the stupidity of Trump's marks. Think, for a moment, about the plight of a Trump mark. He told them he would make Mexico pay for a wall to keep the scary, brown people out of the country. Now, he is threatening to shut the government down in order to make them-- the marks-- pay for the wall.
How does this work? Some of them may want the shutdown for its own sake. Remember, Trump is trying to take credit for the shutdown that will, inevitably occur at some point. Trump never reaches around... for support from anyone other than his base. He just tries to rally his base. Some of that base is the same "shut down the government" teabagger crowd that seems to like at least the idea of government shutdowns, until it starts inconveniencing them, but that generally doesn't start happening until a couple of weeks into a shutdown anyway. So, that checks! Add the symbolism of the wall, an everything still checks here.
Here's how it plays out, then. Trump forces a shutdown. The shutdown plays well with the teabaggers who support him, partly because they like shutdowns. Trump eventually has to cave, but as far as he's concerned, that just preserves the campaign issue of "the wall." He gets to spend every day through 2020 ranting about how the Democrats are personally smuggling members of MS-13 into the country to rape white women, so vote for Trump or the white race will vanish from the face of the earth! (You know, it's really hard to satirize someone as over-the-top as Trump...)
But what about the people who are in it, not for the shutdown, but for the wall? The marks who were dumb enough to believe his campaign promises? Well, in one sense, anyone that stupid can be fooled a second time. Here. Here's a shiny thing. Now, haven't you forgotten all about that promise to make Mexico pay, you silly, little things?
This, of course, is the question. Can the marks be made to turn on Trump by pointing out that he is now actively trying to stick them with the bill? A few points. First, they really do want the wall. Would they pay for it themselves? Well, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), and yeah, fuck Ohio, is proposing asking people to pay, voluntarily, for wall construction.
OK, motherfucker. History lesson. Ever hear of a document called the Articles of Confederation? You motherfuckers are supposed to be big, ole' history buffs, all into the Revolution, 'n shit, right? You know, the Constitution wasn't actually our first organizing document, right? Those Articles. They failed. Why? The feds assumed all Revolutionary War debt, and made tax payment by the states voluntary. That's the short version. It didn't fucking work. That's why we have the Constitution, motherfucker. It's a little thing called "the collective action problem." Mancur Olson. The Logic of Collective Action. Learn it. Know it. Live it.
And it gets worse. Davidson also proposed issuing some fucking cryptocurrency to pay for Trump's wall. Oy. Fucking. Vey. I already have a "Bitcoin is bullshit" series. Do I have to start a "Wallcoin is bullshit" series? I might. I just might. Bloody fucking hell. Y'all know bitcoin has crashed, right? And don't get me started on this new Cleveland thing on "blockchain"...
Anyway, this ain't happenin'. Would some of Trump's marks kick in a few of their pennies and other assorted pocket detritus? Sure. What would that buy? A brick of... something that wouldn't stop a brick of anything. That ain't how this works. Still, some might be willing to pay a bit.
Some, though, really wanted Mexico to pay, and the question that remains is whether or not they can be turned against the guy who conned them by having it pointed out that they got conned. After all, once the "Trump University" scam became sufficiently obvious, many would either drift away or join the legal action against it. How likely is that as Trump shuts down the government to force his own marks to pay for what he promised Mexico would fund, in blatant violation of his own promise?
Not likely. They have too much invested, personally, in Trump. Trump is now a full-blown personality cult, wrapped up in the previous most potent force in American politics-- partisanship. That makes anything rationalizeable. The problem goes back to good ole' Leon Festinger.
Excuse me while I go wash my hands for favorably citing a Sociologist.
Anywho, that's the dude who developed the concept of cognitive dissonance. He was a co-author of When Prophesy Fails, which was the book that Festinger did with a few colleagues after they infiltrated an apocalypse cult to see how they would react after the predicted end of the world didn't occur. Would they realize how duped they had been? Nope. They dug in further, because otherwise, it would be too big a change to their world views. Whenever faced with inconsistent ideas, people look for a way to push one out of their heads, and usually follow the path of least resistance. That doesn't mean being smart. It often means the opposite.
Trump's marks right now are so wrapped up in the cult of personality around him that it will be easier for them to accept any line of bullshit that Trump feeds them-- no matter how stupid-- than to accept that they got duped. He duped them with the dumbest line of shit in political history, and they are committed to him, body and mind. He could show up to any of his marks' houses, rob them at gunpoint, rape their daughters in front of them, then burn down their houses, tell them it never happened, they didn't see what they thought they saw, and every one of those fucking idiots would believe him over their own eyes. This is a cult.
Maybe we should be referencing Festinger over Campbell, Converse, Miller & Stokes.
Yes, it is bizarre in the extreme that Trump promised to make Mexico pay for a wall, and he is now insisting on taking personal credit for a shutdown to make the US taxpayers pay for it. In a world in which facts exist, his own supporters would turn on him.
Welcome to bizarro world. Countdown to the issuing of a Trumpcoin cryptocurrency to counteract the Fed, anyone?
At this point, I wouldn't put the odds of that at zero.