Ok, it’s time to talk Trump. He’s a topic unto himself because more often than not, he’s the story and not whatever issue he’s trying to address. I worry about the actual conservative point of view as it seems to get drowned out by the egos and partisanship inherent around everything Trump does. In light of the recently paused shutdown, it seems like a good time to discuss his methods.
My Way or the Highway
Very often Trump gets it in his head that he is absolutely right and that there is no other way to solve a problem. He also doesn’t think there is a lesser way to solve a problem either, and that mean that any compromise is out of the question. This is what led to the recent shutdown. On the face of it, it’s not that unusual a situation. I’m sure many of us have been in the situation at work or at home where we were convinced of the best way to solve a problem and anything less would be stupid. We dig in and have a big stubborn fight over it. It happens to the best of us.
It happens quite a bit to Trump because his ego is enormous and prevents him from easily accepting that he could be wrong. He also surrounds himself with people who either agree with him or are at least afraid to argue. Worse, he pays far too much attention to conservative pundits who won’t let him gracefully back down and compromise because it would be bad for their ratings. Case in point, the recent shutdowns only happened because talking heads pandering to their viewership called Trump weak for potentially accepting a spending bill that didn’t have money in it for his wall. That’s when Trump decided to put his foot down and demand a wall or else. He is very clearly not his own master. And of course, as soon as he delivers an ultimatum in his characteristic over-the-top, melodramatic way, we can never back down or he’ll look like a posturing idiot with no real backbone. In short, he turns it into a zero-sum game in that his opponents must lose for him to win. At no point in his worldview is there a possibility for everyone to win.
Zero sum is not a good way to run a government. Our leaders should be looking for a way for everyone to win, not focusing on making some of us lose.
A Wall by Any Other Name
If step one of Trump’s bargaining strategy is to make it about winning and losing rather than solving a problem, step two has to be trying to change the narrative so that whatever happens, he can claim that he’s the good guy and the good guy won. You can see this in how his administration backtracks denials or wrong-doing.
I have no idea what really happened or not with Russia and the 2016 election, but I know that Trump has gone out of his way to look guilty to anyone paying attention. (To be fair, I think Hillary also did this to herself throughout her campaign as she reacted as if she were guilty to every controversy that came up, even after she was exonerated.) Trump starts by saying “There was no collusion.” A short while later he follows up with “There was no collusion. But if there were, I didn’t know about it.” A while after that, he goes further with, “There was no collusion, but if there were I didn’t know about it and even if there were, it’s not a crime.” The sheer volume of time spent denying any wrong-doing and belittling the investigation as a witch hunt makes me think he must have done something wrong. Obviously, incessant denials don’t prove anything, but it sure does make me think that proof is out there, otherwise one denial would be enough.
With the Wall, it started with demanding a wall from sea to shining sea (well, the shining Gulf of Mexico anyway). But even though the demand was very specifically for the Wall, Trump went on the warpath claiming Democrats didn’t care about border security and wanted our country overrun by illegal immigrants. (Please note, my discussion about the actual immigration situation is in other posts – this is all about Trump’s ‘Art of the Misdeal.’) Democrats repeatedly approved bills with more than the $5.7 billion figure Trump demanded earmarked for Border Security. The problem? The money was specifically NOT for a wall. It was for increased manpower, training, and technology to secure the borders and reduce the actual ways immigrants were getting here illegally. Some of it was about shoring up the existing infrastructure as there are miles of existing barriers in various places along the border, but that wasn’t giving Trump the Wall he promised his base during the election. He promised Mexico would pay for it too, but his base and the talking heads don’t seem to care about that.
So now, instead of working together to solve the problem of Border Security which everyone actually agrees needs to be address, Trump has his ego-driven battle for his promised Wall, just to keep his base happy. Congress keeps trying to fund Border Security in intelligent ways, but Trump dismissed all of them. His next attempt to compromise was to graciously allow the Democrats to call the wall different things if it would make them feel better – steel slats or the like. To him, it’s not about Border Security, it’s about winning the Wall for his fans.
Create Leverage
Probably step zero in Trumps negotiation tactics is to give yourself leverage before the negotiations even start. Basically, if you want someone to give you a lot of money, the request will be more favorably met if you kidnap his daughter first. Trump’s counteroffer to the Democrats was that if they gave him the wall, he’ll end the shutdown and stop trying to end DACA. In essence, “Give me what I want and I’ll solve your problems that I created.” He unfathomably thinks that’s a reasonable proposal. It’s really akin to taking hostages before issuing demands. And it puts the Democrats in the position of being unable to compromise even if they wanted to, because it would only encourage Trump to take hostages again then next time he wanted something he couldn’t have. Any police officer or military negotiator will tell you that you can’t deal with hostage-takers or it will only encourage more people to do the same. And so, the shutdown dragged on with neither side feeling that they were able to compromise, thanks to Trump.
If You Can’t Win, Cheat
Of course, the next step if he can’t beat the Democrats is to change the game. Congress is denying him the wall, so he’s found a way to cut them out entirely. This is how he is used to doing business. If he’s “losing” to his creditors, he just declares bankruptcy and laughs at them. He’s done this five times. Instead of losing, he quits and claims victory because his “opponent” loses. Regarding the Wall, if Congress won’t give it to him, he’ll declare a National Emergency and take the money from the military budget. Those experienced with rudimentary accounting will realize that that means some military projects or departments that Congress has already funded are going to get robbed to pay for Trump’s Wall. So the military loses in this case so Trump can win. It’s interesting to point out that this could backfire on Trump since funding and supporting the military is a very big deal to Republicans and their base. If Trump goes through with this, we’ll have to pay close attention to how it goes.
In any event, Trump is now threatening to flip the table if Congress won’t let him win. This is the last in a long line of behaviors that would get most children grounded.
Inconclusion
Look, I’m not going to say America doesn’t have a problem with Illegal Immigration (stress on Illegal). It very clearly does. Unfortunately, the facts seem to indicate that a border wall will prevent very few of the methods they get into the country. Won’t stop most of the drugs coming in either since they come in through legal ports of entry. Now, I have heard that a border fence significantly reduced crime as far as car thefts and such in El Paso, Texas, so clearly there is some use to barriers in certain locations. As far as actual security on the whole border goes, a physical wall is the least useful and a very expensive ‘solution.’ So even if you fervently believe that we have a national emergency on our hands due to illegal immigrants, the Wall is the last thing you should be demanding.
I guess what I’m saying is that if Trump really cared about Border Security, he could get the funding to improve the security measures along our entire border dramatically – likely even more than Congress is offering now if he negotiated in good faith and got “tough.” But he isn’t. He’s demanding a very specific thing which everyone else thinks is a huge waste of money (or immoral or whatever). Some Republicans won’t support the Wall either, even though they’d like to support their President.
So the question I have for all of you is:
Is Trump taking a stand to save America, or is he holding America hostage to save face?