Trump fans and haters happy
US President Donald Trump is delivering the best possible outcome to both his detractors and supporters.
Trump last week claimed he could continue his current government shutdown for “months or even years”.
For Trump fans, who are generally against big government, this is great news.
And Trump foes, too, ought to be equally happy. The government they hate, or at least the government that is led by someone they hate, isn’t doing anything.
It’s as close to a Trumpless nation as the US has been since election day in 2016. But even this isn’t enough to cheer up the anti-Trump brigade, who’ve been veering daily from depression to hysteria for more than two years now.
President Trump himself seems to be getting into the shutdown spirit.
After some newspapers claimed Trump administration officials would receive a pay raise while many federal workers were not being paid at all, he cheerfully froze all pay to his Vice-President Mike Pence, members of the White House Cabinet and numerous political appointees.
Trump, of course, accepts just $1 per year. He’d originally vowed to take no salary at all but it turned out that Article II of the US Constitution demands a President be paid.
He’ll keep earning his dollar until 2020 and probably for four years beyond, seeing as Democrat senator Elizabeth Warren is now the most prominent of Trump’s likely presidential opponents.
Warren, you’ll recall, is the lilywhite lady who previously claimed a meaningful level of Cherokee ancestry. Taunted by Trump, who dubbed her “Pocahontas”, Warren last year sought a DNA test.
That test put her actual Native American component between 1/64 and 1/1024. At most, the senator was 1.6 per cent Native American. At least, she was down at just .09 per cent.
On a trip to Iowa on the weekend, Warren was asked about her DNA test during a town-hall meeting.
“I’m glad you asked. I genuinely am,” she said, which is usually the sort of thing people say when they really don’t want to hear that particular question for the rest of their lives.
Then came an example of vague, hopeless political-speak that explains why non-politician Trump was elected in the first place.
“I’m not a person of colour. I’m not a citizen of a tribe,” Warren said.
“Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry. Tribes and only tribes determine tribal citizenship and I respect that difference.” She’s a rich old white woman. Warren talking about tribes is like an Australian batsman talking about centuries. There is no connection between speaker and subject. Meanwhile polls show nearly 80 per cent of Americans endorse Trump’s attitude towards border security. Close to 70 per cent of Democrats are among those who agree that the US requires strong borders.
Last month, a triple-amputee Iraq War veteran named Brian Kolfage opened a GoFundMe page seeking cash to finance Trump’s wall on the US border with Mexico.
Late Sunday the total of donations stood at more than $27 million Australian dollars, or close to $US20 million.
Defeating that pro-Trump mood won’t be easy.
It might not even be possible.