We don’t have a national emergency.  We soon will, because that’s exactly what Trump has planned. It’s all part of a grand scheme that just might work. Consider the developments to date. 

First, Trump has been conducting rallies all over the United States for the past two years, emphasizing the dangers of immigration and the need for the wall, to the point that now 87% of all Republicans believe it’s necessary.  The facts that show it’s unnecessary, wasteful, and counterproductive don’t matter to the success of the Evil Genius’s plan. All that matters is that the overwhelming majority of Republicans believe that immigrants are an immediate threat to the U.S. and that the wall must be built.  That means that very few Republicans in Congress can afford to oppose Trump.

The Democrats have discovered that Trump isn’t interesting in bargaining or compromise.  But their problem is that their base is composed of minorities, educated white women, and some liberal white males, all of whom are vitally interested in civil and gender rights and environmental protection.  The Trump administration has stepped up deportations to an all-time high and has been attempting to cut back the rights of immigrants, legal and illegal, to remove civil rights protections, to make voter registration and voting more difficult for the poor and disadvantaged, and to nullify environmental protections which benefit largely the poorer segments of society.  Given the Trump administration’s record in these issues, they rightly fear that any compromise will just enhance Trump’s power. Also, if they give in on the wall funding, then Trump will spend the next two years tweeting that “even the Democrats knew I was right.  They funded the wall.”  

Second, Trump has no intention of allowing Congress to reach a compromise on the wall issue.  When the Congressional leadership reached an agreement on $1.6 billion on border security, a number Trump said he’d approve, once the bill was passed, Trump rejected it.  Vice President Pence then said Trump would go for $2.5 billion, and the leadership started to put together that bill, when Trump then declared that wasn’t acceptable.  Now, Trump is demanded $5.7 billion for the wall.  But he’s also saying that it’s “up to the parties.”   He’s positioning himself so that neither side can politically afford to compromise, and when everything breaks down, he can claim that the system has failed and he needs emergency powers.

While not all of the federal government is shut down, Homeland Security cannot pay its employees, and they’re a large element of border and transportation security.  The now unpaid TSA agents are already calling in “sick” in high numbers, and since they’re certainly among the 80% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, this problem will worsen, as will the stress and strain among the other near-million or so federal employees not being paid.

As a result, sooner or later there will be some sort of border of immigration incident.  Trump will use that incident to point out the failure of Congress to address this “vital national security issue,” ignoring the fact that he’s the one who created the issue, and will push for a national state of emergency.  If that doesn’t do it, the next incident will.

Sooner or later, as the Trump administration tightens controls and increases deportations, including the child-age legal citizens of illegal immigrants [which reportedly has already begun to happen], there will be demonstrations against the administration.  The administration will claim that the demonstrations are fomented by foreign agents [as they have already claimed at times] and will restrict civil rights more.  The actual process will take longer and have more steps, but the result will be the same.

In short, if Congress refuses to act with veto-proof legislation, Trump will continue to fan the flames until he gains full emergency powers over government.

Don’t tell me It Can’t Happen Here.  It is happening.  The only question is whether we do something about it and demand our legislators cut Trump out of government funding, which they can do.

When Trump learned that the House of Representatives and the Democratic minority in the Senate were willing to give him more border security funding, but no wall or solid steel fence, he walked out of the meeting, saying “Bye-bye.”

He talks about the need to protect Americans, but every day that the partial government shut-down continues, far more Americans are harmed than any possible protection than could be obtained from a concrete wall or solid steel fence.   The National Parks are taking a beating that will require millions to repair and clean up.  Tax refunds are threatened.  Federal contract workers will never get paid for the last three weeks.

No matter what Trump says, none of that really matters to him. He wants that wall because he campaigned on it, and he wants his way.  He wants to proof he’s boss.  And since he can’t say “You’re fired,” to Congress, this is the next best thing for him.

It doesn’t matter in the slightest to him that there are better and more effective ways to deal with the flow of refugees.  It doesn’t matter how many American citizens suffer.  It doesn’t matter than the wall would be a five billion dollar fiasco that would simply channel would-be illegal immigrants into other ways to get into the U.S.  It doesn’t matter that we’re getting more illegal immigrants by far by other ways than across the Mexican border.

Now…the Democrats could turn up the pressure on this issue by saying that, while a wall won’t work and sends the wrong message, there is a need for more border security and that they’d support more funding – with the proviso that none of it goes to a wall.

Or Trump could easily “win” by saying, “Okay, you’re right.  The wall won’t work the way I thought, but that means we need to spend more on other ways to stop illegal immigration. Give me five billion, with solid language that says it can’t be spent on a wall or a solid steel fence.”

 That way, he’d put the Democrats in the corner.  But he’s too much of a four-year-old in temper tantrum outlook to do that.  And so, Americans and would-be migrants will all continue to suffer, and if Congress does cave and he gets wall funding, they’ll have suffered, and all the money spent on the wall will be essentially wasted.

So much for the great deal-maker and temper tantrums in politics.

The other day, I ran across a reader review of one of my books, where the reader downgraded it because it had the “least action” of any book in the series, as if his prime criterion for excellence was violent action.  My first reaction was why he bothered to read my books at all, and my second was that the book in question had more than a little “action,” but no great and endless battle scenes.  And that led to my third thought, which was about the current administration.

With all the emphasis on “the wall” and the totally unfounded idea that illegal immigrants will pose a great and violent threat, and the heralding of the “triumph” over ISIS in Syria, as well as the postured threats and tariff wars, most people aren’t seeing the “real action,” just as that reader didn’t.

As I’ve noted earlier, the Mexican border isn’t the biggest problem with illegal immigrants; and, overall, illegal immigrants are actually paying more in taxes than they’re getting in benefits.  At the same time, green cards are being denied to immigrants with permanent legal status here – yes, you can stay, for now, and until we take away more rights, but you can’t legally work here.  That forces legal immigrants to work illegally if they want to stay alive, and if they’re caught working illegally, then they can be deported…  not only that, but the number of illegal, and some legal immigrants being deported is growing. 

But “the wall” dominates the news. 

In the meantime, across the board, environmental protections are being dialed back administratively, effectively worsening air quality and endangering health. The current administration is continuing to use administrative measures to weaken health care insurance, while administrative decisions are effectively lengthening the protections against competition for brand-name drugs, thus ensuring higher drug prices for longer, and higher health care costs.

Across the entire economy, a few large corporations are gaining market strangleholds, while Congress looks the other way, and the President insists on keeping part of the government shut down until he gets his way.

Our national transportation system continues to erode, and our electric power distribution system is a disaster waiting to happen, but the President claims victory against ISIS in Syria while the DOD secretary resigns, and everyone is up in arms as the President back-pedals on withdrawing troops from Syria.

And Congress, and most Americans, focus on the distractions, while missing all too much of the “real” action, just like that clueless reader.

The problem with true idealists in politics is that few true idealists are able to compromise, and no government, particularly a democratically-based government, works without compromise. 

The problem with most professional politicians is that their ideals are subservient to their desire to retain office, and to remain in office they will vote for popular but unwise policies and legislation. While popular opinion can be fickle, most widely held popular beliefs are simplistic ideals, all too often at variance with reality.

Thus, the combination of idealists and professional politicians mitigates against compromise and practicality, and the less that government accomplishes the stronger people’s beliefs become, in turn reinforcing the problem of polarization, largely because those beliefs are rooted in images only loosely connected to physical reality.

We see that today in the debate over immigration, where one side is convinced that the situation is urgent and the most important problem facing Congress, while the other side minimizes a non-functional bureaucracy that needs overhaul and more funding.  Yet the one side ignores the fact  that the immigration problem is in fact far less severe than it was a decade ago and that, while the immigration system needs funding and fundamental reform, building more walls won’t solve anything and would be a waste of money, while the other side wants what amounts to more open immigration without coming up with a coherent program for dealing with immigration. 

To top it off, neither side in Congress wants to really deal with the problems in Latin American countries that have led to the current flow of immigrants.  And because Congress can’t come up with a unified solution with enough votes to override a Presidential veto, Trump will continue his posturing and fear-mongering  until Congress smartens up… or caves in.

I’m wagering on a cave-in.

As usual, most of the media and most Americans have missed, overlooked, or minimized the most important aspect of the current partial government shutdown, a shutdown ostensibly over the amount of funding for border security, and, in particular because Congress is paralyzed over the amount the Democrats will accept — $1.6 billion—and Trump’s demand for $5 billion, mostly for “his wall.”

Except that’s not the real story, or not the entire story.  The Senate leadership had earlier gone to the President with the $1.6 billion in funding for the remainder of the fiscal year, and according to Congressional parties, the President had agreed to the $1.6 billion number.  When he received the final bill, however, he rejected it and demanded that the Congress send him legislation with $5 billion for border security, despite the fact that the administration hasn’t even spent all the funding it already has for border security.

Now, after having gone back on his word, Trump is demanding a “counter-offer” from Congress for more wall and border security funding.

Needless to say, the Democrats are furious at the President, and the Republicans are blaming the shut-down on the Democrats’ failure to negotiate, willfully ignoring the fact that the Democrats already negotiated in good faith and that the President went back on his word.  And, of course, there’s also the problem that, over time, walls have never worked, and that despite the President’s rhetoric, illegal border crossings from Mexico have dropped 90% since 2000, and that the majority of illegal immigrants today actually arrived legally, as students, tourists, or visitors.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post just published a story noting that the President averaged over 15 verifiable falsehoods a day in 2018, up from 5 per day in 2017 and describing 2018 as a year of “unprecedented deception” by the President.

Exactly why should the Democrats give in to a lying and untrustworthy President?  And why do Republican politicians continue to support him?