[bayesian_horse]

In my opinion it's possible the Democrats will cave. The strategic situation is that Democrats care about the country, and Trump does not. However, not enough Americans are convinced of the latter fact. Once they are, the only rational decision is to cave - and then remove him from office as quickly as possible.

[hakfoo]

The logical play is that any wall is a long-running project. They can promise Trump anything to get him to sign the budget, and then immediately unwind their efforts once the smoke clears.

I honestly want to see them push a budget with something like "Canadian style health care plus a wall" to see if he bites.

[bayesian_horse]

I don't think they could negotiate something as big as a completely new health system in time to stop government services from collapsing...

[tertius]

> The strategic situation is that Democrats care about the country, and Trump does not. However, not enough Americans are convinced of the latter fact.

I'm not an American, just an immigrant. Historically this isn't about caring, it's just about politics.

[bayesian_horse]

Normally it really isn't about caring for the overall good of country. Politicians competing for voters all care about their country, or at the very least have to act as if.

In this case, it is different, because Trump cares more about his "win" in this issue than about the country. Or even about winning reelection, because everything is pointing to public opinion being strongly against what he is doing right now.

However, the nation is hurting badly under the shutdown, and it is going to get worse. Even so Trump is blamed by a majority, and thus "politically" losing more, at some point the democrats will have to concede that the only way to stop the damage is to give in.

But by then, there will be no doubt in most voters' minds that Trump fundamentally doesn't care. And this makes him unelectable for a larger majority and may even pierce his senate-armor against impeachment.

[tertius]

> at some point the democrats will have to concede that the only way to stop the damage is to give in.

Which would be the point where your 'they care more' hypothesis would become true.

So are they just wanting to hurt him politically right now?

[bayesian_horse]

Right now they think they are playing the game "who loses more, politically", in which the president is losing bigly.

Or at least they act as if they believe the president cares about his reelection chances. But as more and more time passes, and he loses more and more support, it will become obvious to even some of his supporters, that he will burn down the country to get his way. And at that point he may get his wall, but he loses everything else.

[tertius]

I don't care about him all that much. As you imply, he'll do whatever he wants to get whatever he wants.

I care about things moving forward. And if we assume that he's not about that, then we need to start moving our gaze to those who are the actors that should be acting correctly and having things move forward. They're not doing that.

[bayesian_horse]

I'm not an American. I think your constitution basically sucks, with the mitigating factor that it was very practical and relatively democratic compared to other states at the time it was written.

One of the huge criticisms that I have is that you can't get rid of an administration. Impeachment seems to be virtually impossible, whatever Trump does or did. And even then you get a vice president who ran on the same ticket and profited from the same criminal behavior.

In Germany, we can get rid of the chancellor within days or weeks, depending on the procedure. We also can't have split governments sabotaging everything. Every vote counts the same etc.