The partial government shutdown continues without an end in sight as we endure a pointless petulant presidential pique. Economists are now predicting that if this continues all of the GDP growth for Q1 2019 could be wiped out, a massive loss of wealth for the nation that I think the global economy can ill afford Great Britain also suffers an economic crisis due to an un-negotiated exit from the European Union. With a narcissistic ignorant man-baby driving the crisis in the United States and cadre of elected leaders quaking in terror of an electorate that they raised in a hot house environment of anti-intellectualism, resentment, and victimhood, I don’t see away that we can reasonably hope to avoid the ship of our economy crashing onto these shoals.

In theory it is not up simply the President. Congress could pass the legislation to reopen the government, and if needed override a veto, but that would require that the Republicans face their voters and they still stand behind Trump in numbers that are truly mind bogglingly high.

Yes, the Democrats could also agree to the nearly 6 billion dollars in ‘wall’ funding but that is a mistake on several fronts.

First and I think most importantly, it a concession to blackmail. Trump is NOT engaged in a good faith negotiation. He offers nothing but reopening the government in return for getting the prize he covets. The Democrats had offered funding for the wall, or at least portions of it because 5.7 Billion is going wall off the southern border, in return for some of things that they wanted, DACA protections and the like. Trump even agreed to that but when conservative talking heads riled up the base, he reneged on the agreement and now demand that it’s everything he wants and nothing for the other side. The only proper response to such threat’s is the same as Wellington’s ‘Publish and be damned!’ (The GOP is all in on appeasement when it they themselves being appeased.)

Secondly, the American people are against the Wall. Now, you do not always bend to popular opinion, individual rights are now subject to mob approval, but this is nothing like that sort of case. By standing firm against the wall the House Democrats are representing a majority of the population.

2016 saw a wave election that was principally driven as a check against the president and any normal executive would have, in the face of the new political realities, moderated their position, but Trump, driven by ego without any comparable talent, cannot.

For the foreseeable future Trump, his style, his ideology, and his values, are the basic form of the Republican Party.

I know that there are those on the right who feel that Trump is some sort of aberration of the political environment. That like some Kaiju from a foreign film he came ashore into the GOP, defeated the party’s defenses, and destroyed its infrastructure. They also cling to the belief that like a rampaging monster in a movie once Trump is expelled, either by being termed out or defeated in the next election, that things will return to what they had been before his sudden and terrible appearance.

To quote a recent film, ‘This is not going to go the way you think.’

As the government shutdown over the wall continues, with every day bringing more stories of deprivation, hardship, and actual danger, Trump’s overall approval numbers slide further into negative territory. A recent NPR/Marist poll shows Trumps; approval vs. Disapproval now stands at an abysmal 53 vs. 39 putting him ‘underwater’ by a whopping 14 points.

When you look below the topline numbers the picture becomes even more clear what is happening.

For Democrats the numbers are 6 vs. 89, but that is hardly surprising.

For Independents he registers an unhealthy 37 vs. 57.

However for Republicans the number are 83 vs. 10 yielding a net positive score of an astounding 73 points. Breaking that group down into soft Republicans, that is people who do not self-identify as strongly aligned with the GOP vs. those who do we get the following results of the soft Republicans it is 76 vs. 16, a 60 point positive spread, and for strong Republicans the number are 90 vs. 5.

Trump is adored by the rank and file members of the GOP. He is not a variation from the norm he is the representation of it. This one fact explains a great deal of the behavior of other elected GOP politicians. With Trump’s net approval among strong Republicans at 85 points and to hold their seats and position all of the pols must first withstand with withering fires of a primary hey will take no action that could inspire Trump’s most dedicated supporters to overthrow than before facing the public a in a general election.

This also means that the best path forward for future GOP politicians is to take Trump’s mantle and wear it as their own. Trump and Trumpism is the future of the Republican Party.

On a deeper level this also indicates that the GOP has become unmoored from any political philosophy. The party that once espoused its dedication to freedom now holds Vladimir Putin in high regard.

Of course the wall I am referring to is President Trump’s ill-conceived border wall between the United States and Mexico. It is ill conceived in terms of its purpose, its economics, and its blindingly obvious racist implications.

The efficacy of a border wall is highly dubious. Illicit market driven material does not come across in deep isolated area of the desert carried by dirty criminal migrant with comically over-sized calves as describe with over racist imagery by GOP Representative Steve King of Iowa, it crosses in trucks and cars and other cargo carrying vehicles through regular ports of entry. For decades now, with sporadic variations, the number of people crossing the border illegally to find work has been decreasing and the recent increases have been from family units appearing at those ports of entry making asylum claims, something a border wall will have no effect on.

President Trump’s motivations for the border wall appear to be blatantly racist, something he has hardly hidden since the start of his campaign, and driven by fear of his base turning against him. His often repeated ‘evidence’ of the need for his wall cherry pick horrific stories to emotionally manipulated and terrify people into supporting his proposal, much like how some gun control activist do the same.

But these considerations are not my real concern. Politics and policy rarely are about facts and data, people, particularly in large numbers, are not motivated by cool reason but hot emotion. I am fearful of the symbol the wall represents and what that means to our national character. It is with a very specific intention that my title uses the word ‘America’ and not ‘The Unites States of America’ as those of two very different concepts.

An often-stated premise from President Trump is that you can’t have a country without borders, falsely imply that we do not have borders now. A state cannot exist without borders that I cannot argue with but a nation exists regardless of borders.

One definition of nation is a group of people with a common history, culture, or language that see themselves as something apart from the rest of humanity and it does not required that they control a state; the Kurds are a nation, tribe of American Natives are several nations, Palestinians are a nation. Often nation and state do go together, the Irish are a nation and a state, and the Japanese are a nation and a state. The United States of America is our state but our nation is America. Our national identity started out weak, strengthened over time, and was forged into its central concept through the fires of our Civil War and the assimilation of waves of new comers. Unlike most, if not all, of the nations of the world, our sense of nation comes not from being at one time a single ethnic people but from a population that share a set of ideals. Granted, we have never fully lived up to those ideals, but it is by defining ourselves by those ideals that we strive to come close to them and better ourselves as a people and as a state. The key concept here is that our entire national identity is bound up in the ideals we believe in, change those ideals and you change the nation, or end it all together.

Building the wall is a symbol of a change in a national character. It is a symbol on Americans turning their backs on the world, focusing on their interior issues, and starting a slide into global irrelevancy. Symbols are powerful things, not mere decorations on ideas, but ideas in themselves. To hand such a symbol on ourselves is to change what it means to be ourselves, it does not merely broadcast a change in a character it creates the change.  For utterly practical we must not build the wall and for souls we must face the world and future not cower from it in terror.