This man is an imbecile.
Aside from the ways in which the shutdown has threatened public safety and income security for millions and damaged the competence of our civil service, this whole stunt has been such an incredibly dumb and mishandled at every step. Trump initiated an incredibly unpopular shut down which has forced down his own approval ratings and produced bad press towards sympathetic public employees every single day for a month. A crisis that he started by his own admission in a publicly televised event, no less! He drove down the popularity of the wall and already shattered the (admittedly hollow) image he had as a dealmaker. He's forced members of his own party to either take base-alienating votes to reopen the government (like Gardner did) or take swing-voter-alienating votes to keep it closed. He got himself viciously owned by his arch-rival (Pelosi) in literally the only game he cares about - using empty stunts to gain/lose public favor. And after all of that, he will end up using the same option that we've all known he's had for the last three weeks. He could have used that weeks ago and avoided all of the humiliation, to say nothing of the millions of people that could be working and earning a paycheck, dozens of national parks that could have been open, tax refunds that could have been returned, etc.
I don't care if he lucked his way to a win in 2016. This man has the political instincts of a dish rag. Can't wait for summer of 2020 where I have to read dozens of headlines from moron journalists about how Trump is still likely to win reelection because of his political brilliance.
