Thread by @JYSexton

This shutdown was a means to blackmail Democrats into paying for a racist symbol that would never be built and to spend billions in tax dollars on a re-election campaign. Pundits help Trump by draining all meaning from this and covering winners and losers.

The system is broken.

The current media system takes what is a crisis of meaning and a crisis of dysfunction and sells the drama of it as entertainment. The core of the debate is stripped and forgotten and people who should be smarter and should have more integrity debate strategy devoid of context.

That environment and worldview, a domain where everything is meaningless except who wins and loses, where effect and truth don’t matter, is where Trump thrives. The groundwork for this despicable and hollow presidency was laid decades ago and they keep continuing to lay it.