Trump’s Shutdown Is Because the Wall Is a Bad Idea
Matthew Yglesias, vox.com: Trump’s shutdown is because the wall is a bad idea
Ultimately the shutdown can only when when Mitch McConnell decides the GOP has already suffered enough damage and a spending resolution is passed with a veto-proof majority, at which time Trump will probably sign it and declare victory.
It seems like a good deal precisely because a path to citizenship for DREAMers is a real, valuable thing that will make a big difference in people’s lives, while the wall is utterly foolish. If you take the anti-immigration position seriously, that makes it a terrible deal. They’d have traded away something real for a bit of political theater.
The true path forward would be the opposite of this — for the White House to admit that the wall is foolish and reopen the government. Then we could begin a legislative negotiation over the topics that are actually in dispute: internal enforcement, asylum law, the treatment of long-settled unauthorized migrants, and future flows of legal immigration. But the Trump administration can’t even admit publicly that Mexico isn’t going to pay for the wall, much less admit that the whole wall concept is essentially irrelevant to their immigration policy goals.
As long as that persists, it’s hard to find a way out.