A Trump Christmas: Bad Santa!

Nothing says Christmas in DC like a government shutdown! So at least Trump got what he wanted for Christmas, a partial government shutdown over funding his absurd border wall, all just to prove to his base and Fox and other right wing mouthpieces that he is fighting for his ridiculous campaign promise. Never mind that it comes at the expense of hundreds of thousands of government workers at the holidays, as well as the public! And of course after saying on live TV that he would be proud to take responsibility for a shutdown over funding the wall, he is predictably now blaming the Democrats for the shutdown because, like a spoiled child, they won’t give him what he wants. He has likely been told or maybe even figured out for himself that once the Democrats take control of the House next week his chances of getting the funding are even lower, but it looks pretty obvious at this point that the shutdown will continue until then anyway. Although his base will continue to swallow any Kool-Aid he pours for them, I think most Americans, the majority of whom do not support building a wall anyway, will probably end up hanging most of the blame for this on Trump, at least those who care about it. It will be interesting to see how long the Democrats, who really have most of the leverage, continue to let him twist in the wind despite his public partial backpedaling, and whether or when they give him enough of a compromise that he can actually claim victory, which he most certainly will try to do in any event. Meanwhile, he is falsely claiming that he is actually in the process of building the wall!  

And while the shutdown drama goes on, the stock market tanks, with the worst week since the Great Depression and so far the worst December since the 2008 Great Recession! This is a reaction to many factors, including the Fed’s recent rate hike (which was certainly expected), signs of impending global economic slowdown, Trump’s trade wars and uncertainty regarding the administration’s policies in general. Monday’s continued huge plunge was also fueled by treasury secretary Mnuchin‘s idiotic announcement that the largest banks confirmed that they had adequate liquidity, as if there was some expectation that that could be an issue! And of course, Trump is predictably shunning any responsibility for any of this, mostly blaming the Fed. He will probably also try to blame the Democrats soon. 

Meanwhile, the baseline chaos and unprecedented turnover in the Trump administration worsens. The now imminent departure of defense secretary Mattis was actually hastened by Trump as a vindictive reaction to Mattis’s critical resignation letter and all of the associated negative coverage. The inordinate number of unfilled and temporarily filled key positions including chief of staff, Attorney General and other cabinet posts, is a blatant testament to the utter dysfunction of this administration, starting with Trump himself. It must be getting harder and harder for Trump surrogates to explain and make excuses for all of this chaos, even though they do. It must also be getting harder for the state department and our diplomats to reassure our allies of anything, particularly now that Trump has unilaterally decided to pull all troops out of Syria and half out of Afghanistan, potentiating slaughter of our Kurdish allies in Syria by the Turks and essentially sabotaging crucial negotiations with the Taliban. It really does seem like the wheels are coming off the train. And with the Mueller and other investigations proceeding and multiple Democratic-led House investigations poised to begin soon, the instability is only going to get worse. The question is at what if any point are things going to completely fall apart, or is Trump going to make a rash enough move to provoke a real constitutional or international crisis! High anxiety in 2019!!