Sick of winning

It's been a fun week in Trumpworld, actually a pretty solid coupla' months really. I've said it before and I will say it again, anyone who thinks "The Wall" is a distraction from any real issue is drastically over-estimating the intelligence and planning ability of the being in the White House. The cruelty is the goal, full stop, the fact that other shitty stuff happens at the same time is not a testament to planning, it's a testament to the fact that there are a lot of irredeemably horrible people in Washington DC who also have their own agendas that the president is willing to either support or at least not interfere with, it has always been thus.

A short recap for those who haven't been paying close attention, the government failed to pass a funding bill to keep services open and entered a partial shutdown around Christmas, Trump, either because he had to or as a weird PR move, made the choice to skip his usual Mar-A-Lago holiday and stay at the White House working, it didn't help any. Nancy Pelosi, back in control of the House majority announced that she would not allow the president to make the State of the Union address from Congress until the shutdown ended, which is entirely within her rights, the president is allowed in those chambers on sufferance by long tradition and law, there is also a traditional mace that becomes involved on occasion. Anyway, he gave in on that topic a couple of days ago, yesterday Roger Stone was arrested and indicted on various charges including witness tampering, today the president announced he would sign a CR(Continuing Resolution) to fund the government for a short time while a new spending bill is negotiated. Said CR was signed as promised and the government is technically fully functional again, or will be on Monday, I am not certain of the time frame.

House Democrats remained surprisingly united during the shutdown and it became clear that the nation as a whole was not blaming them for the crisis, capitulating was the president's only reasonable move, so I was pretty shocked when he gave in, even with his stipulations that the next funding bill needs Wall money or we go back through the whole process again. Personally, I think he does his best to drop the subject between now and the tenth, pending polls and the opinions of some right wing talking heads anyway. There is a chance that a new shutdown would get blamed on the Dems, with the re-opening being seen as an olive branch from across the aisle, but I don't fully believe that will fly.

Personally I think the last month or so has broken him, he's not having fun anymore and it shows. There is very little spin that can be put on these last few events that make them look like wins, and Stone being arrested I think is very personally dangerous for him as well. He doesn't know how to work with people who disagree with him, the only victory in his eyes in one in which he gets everything he wants, and his opponents get nothing, so compromise is impossible, which honestly might be why he just gave in entirely rather than negotiating for real, he decided it was a loss, and that same attitude might just apply to him as well in his own mind, he accepted the complete loss and is moving on to the next battle, but that is just speculation and I don't really know that his heart is in it for the next round.

The GOP meanwhile is growing increasingly restive, as long as Trump commands the base that they need they are finding it difficult to oppose him directly, but cracks are showing, as the last round of votes on spending bills showed. This is not to say that any of them are going to suddenly become allies against their party, the time to make that decision was  years ago, but they might at least break with their president to make a functioning government now and again.

The next few months don't look fun for the president either, as I predicted earlier, I still think he will voluntarily resign, maybe within the year, with the excuse that he did everything he could do and it is everyone else's fault that he can't accomplish more.

Maybe think isn't the right word, perhaps it is hope backed with some evidence, but I feel like it is a stronger possibility than most are willing to admit.