Watching the Train Wreck

Polls are now showing that people are beginning to understand the Humanitarian Crisis and Crime at the Border. Numbers are going up fast, over 50%. Democrats will soon be known as the Party of Crime. Ridiculous that they don’t want Border Security!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2019

First, the prediction before this tweet came out:

Traditionally, in shutdown politics, the party with the eroding poll numbers is the one to make the greater concessions. So, that’s that. The White House will be caving any day now, right?

Alas, the hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts is now convinced that the answer is no.

Trying to predict what Trump will do is a fool’s errand, especially because Trump approaches the shutdown from a place that a generous observer would best describe as a strategy-free zone. Of course, that is one reason he will be less likely to concede. Kellyanne Conway can throw bad numbers around all she likes, but Trump is really good at not listening.

Even beyond that, however, a deeper cut into the polling data would give a Trump whisperer such as Stephen Miller some reasons to hope that maybe things will turn around. To be clear, I am not saying that these are good reasons. Some of them are very debatable. But they are at least grounded in some kind of polling reality that even non-Trumpists would have to acknowledge.

"Doubles-down" was actually a pretty safe bet.  No, I haven't found any poll that explains the numbers Trump is claiming.  In fact:

The increase in disapproval for the President comes primarily among whites without college degrees, 45% of whom approve and 47% disapprove, marking the first time his approval rating with this group has been underwater in CNN polling since February 2018. In December, his approval rating with whites who have not received a four-year degree stood at 54%, with 39% disapproving. Among whites who do hold college degrees, Trump's ratings are largely unchanged in the last month and remain sharply negative -- 64% disapprove and 32% approve. 

The wall itself is no more popular:

 Overall, 56% oppose a wall, 39% favor it. That's almost exactly the same as in December. And less than half view the situation at the border as a crisis (45% say it's a crisis, 52% that it is not).

And I'm old enough to remember when a "national emergency" was going to "solve" this problem.  That's so last week:

According to the Post-ABC poll, “by more than 2-1 (66 percent to 31 percent), Americans say they oppose invoking an emergency to build a border wall. The poll finds 51 percent say they strongly oppose such a declaration.” The wall itself is polling at 54 percent opposed and 42 percent support. So although the wall itself is underwater by 12 points, using emergency powers to try to bypass Congress is underwater by 35 points. That, plus mounting opposition in the Senate, should be enough to persuade even Trump not to do it, which eliminates the “out” that some had hoped would end the stalemate.

It's not going over big in the Senate, either:

Following an event hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, [Sen. John] Cornyn said President Donald Trump is talking to his lawyers about whether he would have the authority to issue a national emergency and reprogram money that’s been allocated for other purposes.

“I will oppose any reprogramming of Harvey disaster funds,” the Senator said. “We worked very hard to make sure that the victims of Hurricane Harvey – their concerns are addressed and Texas is able to rebuild. And I think we are all together on that.” 

Let us pause and remember Hurricane Harvey didn't affect just Houston (which has gone decidedly blue), but the entire Texas Gulf Coast, from Beaumont to Brownsville.  That's a lot of red.

Polling numbers do not favor Trump:

Out today:
Net wall support: CNN -17; WaPo/ABC -12
Net Trump/GOP shutdown blame: CNN +23; WaPo/ABC +24
Net Trump approval: CNN -20; WaPo/ABC not available

— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) January 13, 2019

Trump approval rating continues on a slow but fairly linear decline since the shutdown began. If he's being told this is helping him politically, he's probably not getting good advice. https://t.co/j7XEedEnAf pic.twitter.com/UU3KpR7qjL

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 13, 2019

But Daniel W. Drezner argues support for the wall is slightly increasing (although still underwater by double digits) and that may convince Trump to stay the course.  The problem with that strategy is, it's not up to Trump alone to end this.  Sooner or later the Senate is going to have to decide how much pain it wants to absorb.  Cornyn speaking out about the "national emergency" (which I think is dead as the dodo) indicates even the GOP Senate won't have infinite patience or walk in lockstep as Trump leads the entire government over the cliff.

Trump's severe allergy to reality is not going to serve him well, in the end.  How much is going to cost the rest of us, is the question (then again, we the People are the Sovereign, so every finger we point means three pointing back at us).