Americans Expect A Government Shutdown This Month

The chart above reflects the result of the new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between November 5th and 7th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,313 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.1 points, and for registered voters is 3 points.

Republicans Get Blamed Most For A Government Shutdown

This chart reflects the result of the Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between October 26th and 30th of a nationwide sample of 1,610 registered voters, with a 2.4 point margin of error.

The Nightmare Of Government Shutdown (SATIRE)

The Republicans seem determined to shut down the government. In her latest bit of satire, Alexandra Petri (The Washington Post) presents this as a recurring nightmare: 

I am having the government shutdown nightmare again. I had it a few months ago, but it is worse than before.

You know the nightmare I mean. It is the one where other things are shutting down for the same reasons that House Republicans are shutting down the government. It is one of those nightmares that you keep trying, and failing, to wake up from.

You are lying on an operating table. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is your surgeon. “I can save you,” McCarthy says. “I know how. But that is going to upset members of the Freedom Caucus. Instead of saving you, they want me to insert this bonus liver! I’m going to try it, as a gesture of good faith to them.” He nods to his nurse, lifts the liver from a neighboring tray, and you feel yourself going under.

When you next open your eyes you are on an airplane. Kevin McCarthy’s voice comes over the intercom. “Hello,” he says. “This is your pilot speaking. I would love to land this plane safely. I know how. But if I do that, Matt Gaetz will threaten my job. Instead, he wants me to try to fly into the sun. And to that I say, sure! We don’t know it won’t work!”

“Yes, we do!” another passenger yells.

“What matters is, people will see that we tried our best to land the plane safely!” Kevin McCarthy’s voice says, and then the intercom cuts out and you feel the nose of the plane tilting up, up, up.

When you next open your eyes you are on a deserted island. There is a bridge to the mainland. Kevin McCarthy is setting it on fire. “Come on!” you say. “Really?”

He shrugs. “Freedom Caucus doesn’t want us to use the bridge,” he says. “But they have a great plan that should work, using just a few hen’s teeth, a series of ghosts and cold fusion.” You sigh.

When you next open your eyes you are sinking in quicksand. “Throw me the rope!” you yell to Kevin McCarthy. He is very clearly standing within range, holding a generous length of rope.

“Do you know what will make Matt Gaetz happy?” he yells back. He makes no attempt to throw the rope. You are sinking rapidly. “I am just trying to do what will make Matt Gaetz happy!”“No one knows what will make Matt Gaetz happy!” you yell. “It is essential that you throw me a rope!”

“Essential,” McCarthy says. “I don’t know what that word means. Like an oil?” Sand fills your mouth and eyes. “What if we hold an impeachment hearing? Is that essential?” you hear McCarthy saying, as the sand closes over your head.

When you next open your eyes you are plummeting rapidly through the air, securely belted to your skydiving instructor. The instructor is Kevin McCarthy. “Pull the chute!” you shout. He shakes his head. “SORRY!” he shouts back. “MATT GAETZ WILL GET MAD IF I PULL THE CHUTE, SO INSTEAD I AM GOING TO USE THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING!”

“That won’t work!” you yell. The ground is getting closer.

“IT’S THIS OR MY JOB!” he shouts back.

“YOUR JOB IS TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING!” you yell. You are picking up speed. You squeeze your eyes shut.

When you next open your eyes you are on an out-of-control trolley, barreling toward the U.S. economy’s fragile recovery, which in this scenario is anthropomorphic and strapped to the trolley tracks. There is a bright red switch that will divert the trolley onto a siding where it will damage only one thing, Kevin McCarthy’s career as speaker of the House — a thing of limited value to anyone. “Pull the switch!” you yell. “Pull the switch!” But Kevin McCarthy is driving the trolley. He shakes his head.

I wish I didn’t have this nightmare so regularly. I wish we weren’t in a situation where the punchline to this kind of joke behavior will punch real people in the face. Real suffering for joke reasons, the new American way! I wish this kind of goofy brinkmanship wasn’t going to result in denying expectant parents access to food, straining those trying to deliver health care, and — less importantly, but still — preventing me from seeing which bear is fat this week.

But that would be a dream.

Most Want Politicians To Compromise To Avoid Shutdown

The charts above reflect the results of the new Monmouth University Poll -- done between September 19th and 24th of a nationwide sample of 814 adults, with a 4.3 point margin of error. 

McCarthy - Stop The Extremists & Pass A Budget W/Dems

From The Washington Post editorial board: 

The U.S. government will almost certainly shut down on Oct. 1, the work of ultraconservative holdouts who want to “burn the whole place down,” as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) put it. Yet, for now, Mr. McCarthy does not appear willing to take away the matches. He could sideline the objectors by calling House Democrats and agreeing to pass bipartisan legislation to fund the government. . . .

 The resisters had plenty of chances to bargain, and they have refused. They won’t even approve a defense bill that has everything in it they want. And even if legislation passed the House, the Democratic-controlled Senate would reject it.

Those Democrats have good reason to object to House GOP spending-cut proposals. President Biden and Mr. McCarthy agreed in May to a 2024 and 2025 budget outline that includes some spending cuts (about$180 billion worth of savings in those two years). But the holdouts demand more — and big — cuts. They argue a government shutdown is better than approving a bipartisan budget.

If the objectors’ goal is to control government spending, as they claim, forcing a destabilizing and expensive shutdown over what amounts to only about 10 percent of the federal budget is counterproductive. They don’t want to touch Social Security or Medicare. They refuse to discuss tax policy. They want to increase spending on defense, veterans aid and border control. Their deep concern about federal spending falls entirely on a portion of the “nondefense discretionary” budget, which funds education, transportation, science research, policing, parks, support for low-income Americans and other popular programs.

Meanwhile, a shutdown would hurt the economy. Historically, consumer confidence drops during shutdowns. This could be especially harmful now, as consumers and businesses pull back on spending and banks issue fewer loans. It would also demoralize federal workers at a time when many agencies are struggling to recruit. And it would reaffirm why Fitch downgraded U.S. debt last month, a decision owing largely to political dysfunction. Moody’s — the only one of the three major credit rating agencies that has not downgraded U.S. debt — has already warned a shutdown would be a “negative” in its assessment.

In an ideal world, the House and Senate would pass the necessary 12 agency budget bills by Sept. 30. But that has rarely happened this century; instead, federal budgeting usually involves smashing funding bills into one big package and passing it at the last minute — perhaps after lawmakers have given themselves an extension. That is the only realistic course now: passing a continuing resolution to keep the federal government running until December to give lawmakers time to debate and advance a full 2024 budget. The Senate is expected to approve a bipartisan “CR” by this weekend, a deal far from what the House GOP holdouts are demanding.

There is discussion of a discharge petition in the House, through which a majority of members — Democrats and some Republicans — could force a vote on a CR without Mr. McCarthy’s approval. In return for signing such a petition, moderate Republicans could insist that a bipartisan debt commission be included in any compromise deal. They could also push for Ukraine aid and other supplemental funding requests from the White House to be offset by revenue increases or spending trims elsewhere. At some point, moderate lawmakers from both parties, who represent a much broader swath of the country than the ultra-partisans, have to retake control of the legislative process.

Yet, it is hard for even the most frustrated of moderate Republicans to break ranks with their party leadership by signing on to a discharge petition. Until that changes, Mr. McCarthy is in charge, and the speaker is worried he could lose his job if he strikes a deal with Democrats to pass a CR, because the resisters would move to oust him. He should tell them, “Good luck.” Eventually, he will have to. The only way out of this impasse — in which Republicans control just one chamber of one of the two branches of government responsible for budgeting — involves bipartisan agreement.

Mr. McCarthy can’t lead the Freedom Caucus holdouts to accept this reality. But he can win over the public by putting the nation first, standing with the majority of his own party and getting a deal done — with Democratic votes.

McCarthy Is Weak & Lets Extremists Run The House

The following is by Paul Krugman in The New York Times:

The speaker of the House is the only congressional officer mentioned in the Constitution, other than a temporary Senate officer to preside when the vice president can’t. The speaker’s job isn’t defined, but surely it includes passing legislation that keeps the federal government running.

But Kevin McCarthy, the current speaker, isn’t doing that job. Indeed, at this point it’s hard to see how he can pass any bill maintaining federal funding, let alone one the Senate, controlled by Democrats, will agree to. So we seem to be headed for a federal shutdown at the end of this month, with many important government activities suspended until further notice.

Why? McCarthy is a weak leader, especially compared with Nancy Pelosi, his formidable predecessor. But even a superb leader would probably be unable to transcend the dynamics of a party that has been extremist for a generation but has now gone beyond extremism to nihilism.

And yes, this is a Republican problem. Any talk about dysfunction in “Congress,” or “partisanship,” simply misinforms the public. Crises like the one McCarthy now faces didn’t happen under Pelosi, even though she also had a very narrow majority. I’ll come back to that contrast. First, let me make a different comparison — between the looming shutdown of 2023 and the shutdowns of 1995-96, when Newt Gingrich was speaker.

If you had told me back then that I’d someday hold up Gingrich as a model of rationality, I wouldn’t have believed you. But hear me out.

Back in 1995, while Gingrich’s tactics — his willingness to employ blackmail as a political strategy — were new and dangerous, he had an actual policy goal: He wanted to force major cuts in federal spending.

Furthermore, Gingrich tried to go where the money was. The federal government is an insurance company with an army: The great bulk of nonmilitary spending is on the big safety-net programs, that is, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And Gingrich in fact sought deep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.

He didn’t get them, and the government’s role in promoting health insurance coverage eventually expanded greatly — although Medicare has been surprisingly successful at containing costs. Still, Gingrich’s goals were at least coherent.

McCarthy, in his desperate efforts to appease his party’s hard-liners, has acted as if their refusal to approve federal funding is a Gingrich-like demand for reduced federal spending. He tried to pass a continuing resolution — a bill that would temporarily keep the money flowing — that involved deep cuts to certain parts of the federal government.

But there are three notable aspects to this attempt. First, even if he had managed to pass that resolution, it would have been dead on arrival in the Senate.

Second, unlike Gingrich back then, McCarthy tried to go where the money isn’t, slashing nonmilitary discretionary spending. That’s a fairly small part of the federal budget. It’s also a spending category that has already been subject to more than a decade of austerity, ever since President Barack Obama made concessions to Republicans during the debt ceiling confrontation of 2011. There just isn’t any significant blood to be gotten out of this stone.

Finally, even this extreme proposal wasn’t extreme enough for Republican hard-liners. I liked what one representative told Politico: “Some of these folks would vote against the Bible because there’s not enough Jesus in it.” The point is that the party’s right wing isn’t actually interested in governing; it’s all about posturing, and the budget fight is a temper tantrum rather than a policy dispute.

If the G.O.P. were anything like a normal party, McCarthy would give up on the right-wingers, gather up the saner Republican representatives — it would be misleading to call them “moderates” — and make a deal with Democrats. But that would almost surely cost him the speakership, and in general more or less the whole G.O.P. is terrified of the hard-liners, so the party’s positions end up being dictated by its most extreme faction.

As I said, all of this is very different from what happens on the other side of the aisle. You still sometimes see analyses that treat Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right as equivalent, but they’re nothing alike. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is, in fact, interested in policy; it tries to push the party’s leadership in its direction, but it’s willing to take what it can get. That’s why Pelosi, with only a narrow majority during Biden’s first two years, was nonetheless able to get enacted landmark bills on infrastructure, climate and technology, while McCarthy can’t even keep the government running.

Now, a protracted shutdown would be highly disruptive, and if past confrontations are a guide, the public would blame Republicans — which is what led Gingrich to back down in the 1990s. But it’s not clear that McCarthy, or whoever replaces him if he’s overthrown, would be willing or even able to make a deal that reopens the government. How does this end? 

Right-Wingers Pose Danger With Their Shutdown Protests

Austin, Texas

Huntington Beach, California

St. Paul, Minnesota

 Orlando, Florida

Salem, Oregon

Lansing, Michigan

Our nation is in the middle of a pandemic that has cost nearly 40,000 lives already, and will undoubtably cost many thousands more before it is over -- even if we cooperate with the social distancing measures put in place in most states. Unfortunately, there is a tiny minority (composed mostly of radical right-wingers) that refuses to cooperate.

Right-wingers took to the streets in many states this weekend to protest the shutdown measures being taken by most states. Those measures have saved lives, and since there is no vaccine or cure for the Coronavirus, represents our only hope to control the pandemic. Those right-wingers don't care. They claim the shutdown somehow violates their "rights", and they're evidently willing to unnecessarily kill thousands more people to protect those "rights".

No one's rights are being violated. The government has the responsibility to act to protect public health, and it is being done only until the very dangerous virus has been controlled.

These right-wing nutters have the right to protest, and to expose themselves to the virus by doing that. If they were the only ones to get sick because of their protest, I probably wouldn't mind. After all, you can't fix stupid! But anyone stupid enough to attend one of these protests is probably too stupid to quarantine themselves for a couple of weeks after doing so. Instead, they will carry the virus back to their families and friends, and anyone else crazy enough to get close to them.

These ignorant protesters say they want the economy reopened, but their actions will likely do just the opposite -- spread the virus and cause the shutdown to last even longer. Sadly, Donald Trump is encouraging their dangerous actions, and so are some other Republican officials. They are playing politics with the lives of American citizens (especially older Americans).

This is inexcusable -- and it shows once again that the radical right (and their political leaders) are the most dangerous element this country faces.

Is Trump Crazy Enough To Shut The Border? Maybe!

(Photo of Donald Trump, from Time.com, is by Anthony Behar / Sipa USA/AP.)

Is Donald Trump crazy enough to shut down the border between the United States and Mexico. He has threatened to do that before and not followed through. But he seems to be more serious this time, even to the point of mentioning a time frame for it to happen (this week).

I still think it's probably an empty threat -- designed to convince his followers that he is a strong leader. But he's not very bright, and obviously has some mental problems. It's just possible that those might let him actually follow through on his threat this time.

He obviously doesn't realize that closing the border would be an economic disaster. It might salve his bigoted and xenophobic personality (and that of his followers), but it would damage the economy.

Here's just a tiny part of a good article by Dara Lind at Vox.com on the Trump threat:

Shutting down ports of entry would be an economic disaster. It would also disrupt the lives of border communities that rely on the flow of people between the US and Mexico — including the major cities of San Diego (and Tijuana) and El Paso (and Ciudad Juarez).

Approximately $1.5 billion worth of commerce happens along the US-Mexico border every day. Nearly half a million people cross the border legally every day through Texas ports alone.

Even reductions in port capacity or temporary shutdowns tend to lead to panic among the business community and local residents. El Paso is currently concerned that already-long waits at the ports could get longer as agents are reassigned to care for unauthorized migrants. When the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego shut down for a few hours in November, as agents responded with force (including tear gas) to an organized march of asylum seekers, the temporary closure cost about $5.3 million in lost business revenue.

Of course, making it harder for people to cross legally generally only encourages people to cross illegally — something that’s already been seen as the US has limited the number of asylum-seekers it allows to present themselves at ports.

Trump’s Friday tweets actually tacitly acknowledge that drug smuggling is more likely to happen at ports than between them — something he generally explicitly lies about. But drug smugglers are less likely than, say, banana exporters to just throw up their hands if a port is shut down, rather than finding other illegal ways to get drugs into the US.

Every time Trump tweets something like this, border-state legislators and business associations react with alarm. Generally, DHS officials stress that they understand the importance of keeping the ports open. But Trump by all appearances does not. 

It’s not that “shutting down the border” is the administration’s only proposed solution — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen wrote a letter to Congress on Thursday asking for changes to the law regarding family detention and child deportation, and predicting that they would need more funding. But it’s an idea Trump himself can’t let go of. And now, for the first time — if for completely different reasons — there is an actual prospect that the administration will do something that looks vaguely similar to Trump’s threats.

The Public Is Opposed To Declaring Emergency To Build Wall

Donald Trump is still wanting to build his border wall between the United States and Mexico. He shut down the government last month to get $5.7 billion to start construction on the wall, but wound up opening the government back up without getting anything. Now Congress is trying to negotiate a budget before the deadline of February 15th.

Trump is saying if he doesn't get his $5.7 billion in the new budget, he will either shut down the government again, or he will declare a national emergency to use other government funds to build his wall.

I doubt he'll shut the government down again. He took too big a hit in the polls last time. So did congressional Republicans. I doubt either will want to repeat that, and the Senate Republicans might even join Democrats to overturn a possible Trump veto.

That just leaves one option -- declaring a national emergency. And I'm starting to think that's exactly what Trump will try to do. There's a good chance it would be stopped by the courts (as being unconstitutional, since no real emergency exists). But I don't think Trump cares about that, and sees it as a win regardless of what the courts do.

If they let him get away with declaring an emergency, then he gets to start his wall. If they don't, then he'll just shrug his shoulders and tell his odious base that he tried, and the evil Democrats and terrible courts wouldn't let him do it. It's the only way out of the box he has put himself in.

But while it may be his only option, it's not one that will ingratiate himself with the public. By a large margin, the public is opposed to declaring a national emergency to build a wall. This is verified by three different polls -- the CBS News Poll, the CNN / SSRS Poll, and the Economist / YouGov Poll.

Could Trump Build A Wall By Declaring National Emergency?

(Cartoon image is by Randall Enos at cagle.com.)

The government shutdown has ended until February 15th to give Congress a chance to negotiate a way out of the current mess over building a wall between the United States and Mexico. Is a compromise possible?

Trump still insists that he must get the $5.7 billion to start building his wall (which would cost in total at least $25 billion, and probably much more). Democrats still insist they will not give him money for a wall. There is some chance they will agree to $5.7 billion for "border security", but that would not include any money for a wall -- instead supplying funds for technological tools, more border officers, and repairing/replacing existing border "barriers".

Is that good enough for Trump? Probably not. He has said he has two options if he doesn't get money for his wall -- to again shutdown the government, or to declare a national emergency and have the military build the wall.

The first option is not a real one (unless Trump is a complete idiot). Trump bore the brunt of blame for the first shutdown, and if he vetoed an effort by Congress to keep the government open with a compromise budget (including money for "border security"), he would again be blamed -- and probably by an even larger margin this time. And just like before, the Democrats could not give in (because doing so would just give Trump a tool to override Congress on other things he wants).

That leaves only one possibility -- to declare a national emergency and try to use funds appropriated for other things to build his wall. Democrats would immediately go to court to stop that. And they would be on pretty solid ground -- first, because there is no real emergency, and second, because he would be trying to do an end run around Congress by using funds for something they were not appropriated.

Trump probably thinks the Supreme Court would come down on his side. He might be right, but I suspect they would do their best to avoid the issue -- letting it work its way slowly through the District Court and Appeals Court levels first. And there would likely be an injunction stopping the emergency declaration while that happens.

I think it is likely that Trump will try to go the "national emergency" route. But I don't think it would be successful, and many conservatives will be afraid that a future liberal president would use this as a precedent to impose something he wants (but Congress has blocked).

Trump would be smart to just take what Congress gives him for "border security" and declare it a victory -- even though it doesn't include money for a wall. But then, Trump hasn't shown much intelligence so far.

Polls Wer Solidly Against Trump On Wall And Shutdown

Trump had no choice but to cave and reopen the government. Poll after poll has shown that a majority don't want the wall, and they blame Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown.

This latest poll is the ABC News / Washington Post Poll -- done between January 21st and 24th of a national sample of 1,001 adults, with a 3.5 point margin of error.

Trump Won't Admit It, But He Lost (Bigly)

(Cartoon image is by Jonathan Schmock at jonathanschmock.com.)

There is no other way to describe Trump's acceptance of the reopening of the government. He lost. He swore he would not reopen the government until he got money for his border wall. He didn't get any -- not a penny.

Here's some of what Jennifer Rubin had to say about it in The Washington Post:

Things continue until they don’t. The senseless, cruel government shutdown ended on Friday. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had vowed she would not give anything until the government reopened. President Trump had promised he wouldn’t reopen the government without funding for his border wall. Now, Pelosi is getting what she wants. Trump has lost. The deal would reopen the government for three weeks to allow a conference committee to discuss border security measures — but not a wall.

Trump said in the Rose Garden that he was “proud” to announce that a deal had been reached, though it was nothing more than a capitulation. . . .

You cannot get thumped any worse than Trump did on this encounter with Pelosi. Each step along the way, the president stumbled. He told Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) “I will be the one to shut it down.” He’d be proud to do it! He wouldn’t blame them! He was then ready to sign a clean continuing resolution — until he listed to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh and provoked a shutdown anyway.

In the iconic video from December, Schumer can barely contain his laughter. Inside, surely he was jumping up and down, delighting in Trump’s political malpractice.

Since then, Team Trump has shown a total lack of compassion for the 800,000 government workers going unpaid. . . .

Ultimately, what may have convinced Trump to give up were all those polls he insisted that he was discounting. As Trump throws in the towel, a new Post/ABC poll underscores just how unpopular Trump has become during the Trump shutdown. “Public disapproval of President Trump has swelled five points to 58 percent over three months as a majority of Americans continue to hold him and congressional Republicans most responsible for the partial federal government shutdown.” Pelosi has fared much better. (“53 percent blame Trump and congressional Republicans while 34 percent blame Pelosi”). Meanwhile, independents critical to both midterm and presidential elections have fled in droves. Among independents, disapproval has soared from 53 percent in November to 63 percent now, while 54 percent say "Trump and Republicans are more responsible for [the shutdown] while 29 percent blame Pelosi and Democrats.”

We will see whether Trump’s collapse costs him with his base. If so, the bottom will fall out of his ratings. We are left with two final questions: Will there be serious primary challengers to Trump, who’s managed to prove his total incompetence? We’ll see. And will Pelosi get tired of winning? I think not.

Trump Caves - Will Open Government Without Wall Money

(This caricature of Donald Trump is by DonkeyHotey.)

Donald Trump had shut the government down because Congress had not given him any money to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. He said he would not reopen the government until Congress gave him at least $5.7 billion to start building the wall -- and his shutdown lasted for 35 days, about two weeks longer than any previous shutdown in U.S. history.

But the shutdown didn't work out as Trump expected. He found he was unable to bully Speaker Pelosi into giving him wall money (and Minority Leader Schumer stood solidly with Pelosi). The public blamed Trump for the shutdown, and his poll numbers started going down.

In the end, Trump caved in to the Democrats for the second time this week. The first was when he tried to force Speaker Pelosi into letting him give a State of the Union speech in the House without opening the government. Pelosi shot him down, and he backed off (saying her position was "reasonable"). Yesterday, Trump held a news conference in the White House Rose Garden and again caved. He said he would sign a measure that would open the government until February 15th, while Republicans and Democrats negotiated "border security".

He then spent most of his speech telling a massive number of lies to try and justify that border security including a wall. It's not going to happen. Pelosi (and Schumer) are NOT going to give him any money for a wall. They will agree to more money for border security. Trump will have to be happy with that.

He said if he doesn't get wall money by February 15th, there could be another government shutdown. I don't think he will do that. he was hurt too bad by this shutdown. He might try to declare an emergency and steal military funds and soldiers to try and build his wall without congressional approval. But I think the courts would quickly stop that.

The best Trump can hope for is to try and claim the extra border money is a victory for him. It's not. It's a surrender -- the biggest political loss of his administration. It's now Pelosi-2 and Trump-0. Expect Her to now run up that score.

Trump's Approval Drops As He Is Blamed For Shutdown

The chart above is from the AP / NORC Poll -- done between January 16th and 20th of a national sample of 1,062 adults, with a 4.1 point margin of error.

It shows that the job approval of Donald Trump has dropped recently among all groups -- the general public, Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans. His approval currently stands at a very low 34% among all adults -- 4% among Democrats and 28% among Independents. Only Republicans give him a high approval rating (77%).

The recent drop is due to his being blamed for the government shutdown. About 60% of all adults blame Trump for the shutdown -- including 87% of Democrats, 54% of Independents, and 28% of Republicans.

Only 31% of all adults and 30% of Independents blame the Democrats.

Trump Is Trapped - And He Did It To Himself

This chart shows Trump's job approval has dropped in four respected polls -- the CBS News Poll, the Politico / Morning Consult Poll, the Economist / YouGov Poll, and the Quinnipiac University Poll.

If Trump thinks he has public support for his shutdown of the government, he is sadly mistaken. Poll after poll has shown the public doesn't want his silly wall, is upset the government has been shutdown, and blames Trump for the shutdown. His job approval is shrinking. And it's his own fault. He is trapped, and it's a trap of his own making. His position is getting weaker by the day, and threatens to derail the last two years of his term.

Here is some of how Jennifer Rubin describes Trump's dilemma in The Washington Post:

The irony here — or is it karma? — is that Trump’s biggest cheerleaders in the right-wing media (e.g. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity) and his hardcore anti-immigrant adviser Stephen Miller who egged him on are now responsible for the worst political debacle of his presidency, one that has erased any residue of presidential power. He’s now trapped, waiting for a permission slip from the right-wing media chorus to capitulate — or watch his support and any hope for legislative accomplishments evaporate.

As to the remainder of his term, Trump was never going to advance any proposal on a wide range of issues without Democratic-buy in. Now, having empowered them and weakened his own hand, he’ll either have to give more ground in future negotiations or meekly accept two years without a significant accomplishment.

For now, his agenda is on hold. (“The standoff has already forced Mr. Trump to cancel a trip to Europe to meet with global business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, at a time when the world economy faces a possible slowdown,” the New York Times reports. “The president has made no evident progress in filling a series of senior vacancies nor has he produced the tax-cutting plan he promised last year. He has done nothing in weeks to publicly promote priorities like fighting opioid abuse or bolstering the economy.”)

Trump cannot bear to face the possibility of defeat on the issue that was most central to his campaign and most closely tied to his theme of white grievance. As with trade, however, his fixation with avoiding defeat leads to further erosion of his power. He faces a lose-lose choice: Give in now, as humiliating as that might be, or alternatively, continue a fruitless fight that will sap his chances of political survival and still not avoid eventual defeat.