Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
^ That's a strange way to look at things, and ignores the fact that he was also pushing himself, the luckless Fed workers, the American public and the Republicans to the brink as well. He folded when confronted by the resounding rejection of his cause from all sides, even down to that loathsome Trump acolyte, Mitch McConnell.
^ Or to paraphrase, if you waste a month promoting something that fails spectacularly, try something else. Personally I wouldn't agrandise that approach as being some tactic in the art of the deal.
^ Actually, Trump has already declared himself proud to own the shutdown. Everybody, from Pence on down had made a bi-partisan agreement that would've avoided the shutdown altogether. All he had to do was sign, so the fact that he didn't is exclusively on him and his flawed decision to let Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh dictate his policy and force his u-turn on that agreement.
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1. It isn't strange at all. Government shutdowns are a two way street, and it stopped being Trump's responsibility at a very clear point near the end. Trump owned it to the point where the Democrats rejected his proposal (which would have been a good concession on DACA as well). At that point, the amount Trump was asking for had already been exceeded by the cost of the shutdown itself. Seeing that, Trump realized that the Democrats were willing to keep the government shut down even when the cost of doing so was painful to everyone else.
2. Politics aren't that different from certain aspects of my own work. Look at marketing and advertising: the only way businesses achieve their goals are by shifting tactics and experimenting. You try something for a month and say "I'm willing to spend X to see if this approach will get me my target ROI". If it doesn't work, you shift gears. That's why people pay companies like mine thousands and thousands of dollars, because everything is a work in progress when you are attempting to achieve a specific goal and it's a full time job to develop methodologies that work.
3. When you look at the total amount of money available and what Trump was asking for, it's a drop in the bucket. That's why it makes no sense that the Democrats weren't willing to take any deal from him, because that would have been leverage they could have used later on. Now they don't get any concessions on DACA and he'll likely take radical steps to get what he wants instead. And the courts will uphold it in the end to boot.
My guess is that Trump would rather have the Wall than a 2nd term, so it will be interesting to see what he does to actually attempt to fulfill that particular campaign promise now that he knows that his opposition won't take any sort of compromise.