Trump has spent 10 months sending the message that the govt does what he wants. Demolishing the East Wing was just an exclamation mark on that. So it shouldn't be surprising that Rs can't offload blame for the shutdown. If Trump wants the government open, why isn't it open?
He didn't wait for permission to blow up boats off the coast of Venezuela or to shutter USAID. Seems like if he wants to pay food stamps or air traffic controllers, he would just tell Treasury to do it.
At Trump's behest, Senate Rs gutted the restrictions on the reconciliation process and they breached old appropriations norms with his rescissions. If they won't find a way to flex around the filibuster, I guess that means they consider opening the government unimportant.
There are low-information ways to reach this view (look, he tore down the building!) and high-information ways (actually understanding the reconciliation baseline gimmick) but either way the message is the same: if Republicans cared they wouldn't let pesky rules get in the way.
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