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Trump offers to temporarily suspend one racist & probably illegal action of his in exchange for receiving support for a different racist & undoubtedly wasteful & ineffective other initiative. That's not negotiation. That's a symptom of a character defect and mental weakness.
It is not negotiation. It is the illusion of negotiation. It has often been said Trump is a stupid person's idea of a smart person and a poor person's idea of a rich person. But he is also an ignorant, corrupt, pretender to the presidency's idea of what a president is.
He is negotiating with himself, offering non-concession concessions that only underscore his misunderstanding of how politics work, of his own political situation, of his opponent and last, but not least, of right and wrong.
When his moronic and offensive gambit is rejected for being moronic and offensive, he then goes into a childish snit on the Twitters and starts attacking his opponents because they have rejected his specious, insupportable, transparent and frankly, silly, arguments.
He has shut down the government of the United States for a month for a border project not one single Congressperson of either party who serves a border constituency supports. He has done it despite the prior positions of his entire party.
He has done it to appease a few loud voices playing in the non-stop Fox News loops that shrieks in his head morning, noon and night. His support among the American people is plummeting despite his desperate protestations to the contrary.
But there is no way out, no way to achieve his goal w/out a compromise that would undo his white nationalist policy platform & thus inflame those loud & insistent & irrational & hateful voices in his head. You can see it in his pronouncements. The process is driving him mad...
...well, madder. There are two reasonable compromises out there. One is to reopen the government by authorizing everything but the wall money and to open that to future debate. The second would be to give a little money for his miserable wall...
...in exchange for permanently restoring DACA and undoing the worst of his border policies notably family separation, unfair prosecution, and the creation of concentration camps on the border and targeting immigrants serving in the military, etc.
The problem with both approaches is they will be perceived by Trump's racist core of supporters as defeats. And this is what torments him the most. Because in his own mind, he is the great negotiator, the mastermind who is smarter than everyone else.
He forgets his bankruptcies and his myriad past defeats and revealed frauds. He has suppressed them. Because while he actually has almost nothing in common with his so-called "base" he does share one thing with them.
He is a loser's idea of a winner. The problem is that kind of misconception has a habit of being revealed to be false because sooner or later reality creeps in. That is happening for Trump now. He is the con man who has crossed the fatal line when he's understood to be a grifter.
The foolish campaign for the wall is just one symptom of this--when his signature campaign promise inevitably becomes his signature political defeat. Foreign leaders are realizing he can't deliver on his promises. Domestic audiences are realizing his "deals" are all scams.
And prosecutors are slowly pulling back the curtains to reveal that the man behind them is not only a crooked huckster but that he is worse, that he is only truth are the lies his sells to enrich and empower himself, regardless of their costs or the betrayals they involve.
He is a loser's idea of a winner. And he is one of those losers who has fallen for his own deception. But slowly, inevitably, he will face the hard truth and as defeat turns into successive defeat, and revealed crimes turn into convictions...
...he will start to be seen as everyone's idea of a traitor & a crook, of a liar & a threat to the country he tried to con.
