When the President Doesn't Know How Government Works

So, we’re three days into 2019, and thirteen days into the toddler-in-chief’s latest temper tantrum. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or purposefully unplugged from politics to preserve your sanity, you’ve heard about the government shutdown that occurred right before the holidays. President Grinch asked Santa Congress to attach $5 Billion in funding to the government spending bill, so that he could build the wall he promised all his racist, xenophobic supporters on the campaign trail (you know, the one he REPEATEDLY said Mexico was going to pay for…), and Santa Congress said “hell nah.”
Now, maybe it’s because he never watched School House Rock or paid attention in civics class, but Trump honestly doesn’t seem to know how the US Government works. In order for a bill to pass, it has to have the required number of votes in both the House of Representatives (where, at the time, there was a Republican majority) and the Senate (where there is still a Republican majority). When he met with Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer prior to the shutdown, he claimed that Democrats were the reason behind the bill not passing. In truth, there aren’t enough House Republicans on board with this ridiculous ass proposition either. Pelosi reminded him of that, and Trump did what Trump does best: vomiting up nonsensical word salad, telling lies, and demonstrating his incompetence. By the end of the conversation, he’d stepped into a pile of huge, steaming shutdown of his own making.
If the shutdown only affected the paychecks of those making the decisions on capitol hill, the decision might be a little more understandable. But numerous government agencies are feeling this hit. Departments like Housing and Urban Development, the Coast Guard, the FCC and FEMA just to name a few, have had to furlough close to 800,000 federal employees or ask them to work without pay. Most ironically, the department that oversees Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is affected. The very people who work to protect the border are now working without pay, because the president wants to build a wall which probably costs more than 10 years of their salaries combined. This whole situation is just…stupid.
The 116th Congress was seated earlier today, and newly elected Speaker Pelosi wasted no time in bringing a measure to the House floor aimed at partially reopening the government. The bill passed with bipartisan support, but is said to face a veto from the president (if it even makes it out of the Republican controlled Senate). Congressional leaders are slated to meet with the president on Friday in an effort to discuss compromise, but if his previous behavior is any indication, getting him to let go of this wall funding will be more difficult than getting him to pronounce anonymous. 

Wall Woes

(A version of this post first appeared on the citizen.education website.)

Reading the news these days feels more like reading a script for an experimental spinoff of “House of Cards.” Contrived crises which affect elections, plea deals for criminal activity, and constant chaos at 1600 Pennsylvania feels as though this administration lifted it’s strategies straight from Netflix. Unfortunately, no one in this version is as smart as the TV characters, so it’s more like all political decisions are being made by Tom Hammerschmidt’s dog. No shade to the dog.

On the heels of losing the House to Democrats, the petulant persimmon presiding over America’s fate is poised to throw yet another tantrum over his border wall funding. Trump wants our government to guarantee him $5 Billion (with a B) toward building a “big, fat, beautiful wall" between the US and Mexico. Never mind that the ENTIRE TIME this idiot yodeled about a damn wall on the campaign trail, he swore Mexico was gonna pay for it (and Mexican legislators have said time and time again NO THE FU@K WE AIN’T); Never mind that Congress told him early on in his tenure he needs to go saddown somewhere with this ridiculous request, and that the cost of the wall has ballooned up to three times the original estimates (latest one puts the cost at around $21 Billion); Never mind that he already threatened to shutdown the government over this issue earlier this year, and still didn’t get his way; Donnie wants his wall, and there’s nothing you level headed, law abiding adults can do to change his mind.

The fact that there are thousands of asylum seekers at the border right now, fleeing life threatening gang violence and poverty caused by their own government’s implosion, is pouring racist gasoline on this dumpster fire of an issue. Weeks before the migrant caravan was even close to the US, Trump started his Paul Revere/Chicken Little routine: running around the country at various GOP political rallies shouting “The immigrants are coming! The fences are falling!” Obviously, this was in an effort to make sure bigoted, xenophobic white people would go out and vote Republican, but it also laid a firm foundation for the reemergence of his wall whining. This may explain why the GOP led congress kicked the can of funding the wall down the road until after midterms. He has since deployed around 5,900 active duty troops to the border, (in addition to the 2,100 national guardsmen already there, costing taxpayers around $210 Million), and recently gave authorization to the military for the use of lethal force against the migrants…even though being admitted as a refugee and seeking asylum in America is a perfectly legal process.

All of this builds pressure on congress right before a vote on the budget, which includes his outrageous wall ask. As we all know, pressure bursts pipes, but in this case? Trump is hoping that pressure builds him a wall. Let’s hope this venture ends up just like the majority of the ones he takes in business: as a spectacular failure.