I am primarily interested in what good things we who actually care about people will get out of it. He probably cannot offer a permanent DACA fix, or anything else of that sort. I am not sure that his base will permit or forgive anything that might actually be attractive to our side.
“Participants said they expect money for physical barriers to end up well below the $5.7 billion that Trump has sought to begin construction of the wall, which has attained iconic significance for him and his conservative supporters.”
“Release the Coulter!”
Republicans to Trump: We think your 5 minutes are up. Let the grownups figure this out and you just put an X where it says to sign.
I’m torn between wanting to see any legislative concession to the Manchurian Combover go down in flames and wanting to see a semi-rational bill passed and his veto overridden. Both scenarios have their virtues but, alas, both seem equally unlikely.
Dems have to be really careful to avoid sending the message to the GOP & Trump that hostage-taking works.
That includes giving Trump anything that he can cash in politically with his base. If he learns that throwing a tantrum and shutting down government allows him to (1) truthfully state that he’ll stand firm on racism, and (2) that he’ll get a scrap of red meat to keep his base happy, then he will continue to take hostages.
No matter what else is in the bill, Trump must lose by every definition. Anything else will create an incentive to take more hostages.
The critical thing for the Dems in this negotiation is to deny Trump the ability to call this a “win,” and say that he’s now building his wall. Even if it’s just 1.6b worth of wall. That would mean the shutdown worked as a tactic. So the final game here is about nomenclature and optics.
I’m very curious to see what the Dems have in mind for a negotiated deal that denies Trump the win he so desperately wants on this issue. They had better not be selling out everything our democracy gained by Speaker Pelosi standing firm on the shutdown. He can’t get anything out of this that could be called a “wall.”
Well said. This is where Dems normally snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I’m hopeful but not optimistic.
The word “hostage” must inform Democratic thinking on this matter.
Trump will go to that well again and again if allowed…
The big square in the Oval Office always has priorities and prerequisites that preclude his participation. Will it make me money? Does Vlad approve? Does it give 100 strokes to Hobart* the ego monster? Yes, he has a name for it.
The ego monster will rage during executive time replays of the SOTU when it figures out Dems ridiculed the performance. That perceived insult will compel the ego to seek revenge.
So with a deficit of adoration from Hobart’s point of view, he could very well be compelled to attempt another shut down.
*Full disclosure: I probably made that up, he uses several other names for his MNPD.
“I’m not optimistic it’ll be something the president can support,” Meadows said.
At this point it should be pretty clear to everyone involved that Trump has almost no ability to affect the outcome of this situation. So, why is anyone on the Democratic side even considering throwing him a bone?
At this late date, after all that has transpired, Trump has done nothing to deserve a lifeline.
"One White House aide said Trump was expected to back whatever compromise emerges "
Okay, you said it. That is about all I am giving it. It was said. How that works out is entirely up to Trump Angst that day and if he needs a distraction.
The word McConnell has not appeared in this discussion (if it HAS, I missed it 
)
The entirety of this article could have been shortened to one word:
MCCONNELL
Well, if this is what goes down we’ll have taught Trump a lesson, all right. We’ll have taught him that if he demands $5.7B, and does tens of billions of damage to the economy to get it, he gets $1.6B to build an insane Stalinesque monument to himself, and to motivate his mouth-breathing base to turn out and support him in 2020. And we’ll have taught him that he’d better raise next month’s extortion demands to, say, $57B.
What’s the point of offering this creature anything? Are there cretins in Congress who still think he will keep his word, and not just scoop up whatever’s offered and proceed to the next hostage-taking or emergency declaration?
My offer to Trump is this: not nothing, but impeachment, indictment, civil asset forfeiture, and life in a for-profit prison. Anything less commits us to repeating this episode again and again for at least a generation.
I don’t think the Dems are considering throwing him a bone, which in Trump’s mindset would mean anything he could call a wall, or any real progress towards it.
They’d better not be. What they might do is approve some money for rebuilding existing barriers, or maybe some new fencing. But it has to be very carefully described as “fence,” complete with kindergarten-level drawings for Trump’s base showing what it will look like. It can’t be throwing him a bone he can call a wall, in any way, shape, or form.
It’s silly and depressing that we’ve come down to this; that we have to play games with nomenclature and imaging. But the principle of not using shutdowns as a tactic has to be preserved.
And we’ll even throw in a free sharpie if you act now.
That rug on his head looks like the last picnic basket Yogi stole turned upside down.
Here’s a potential compromise: Take the 1 from the left wing of the decimal point from the Democrat’s border security allocation, then add the 7 from the right wing of the d.p. from Trump’s request, and make it $1.7 billion.
That’s a fair compromise, right?
And Trump gets to brag to his supporters, “If I hadn’t shut down the government for 35 days, we never would have gotten that $100 Mil. Yay me!”