Trump needs to bring a real concession to the shutdown bargaining table, not steel slats – Washington Examiner

Although President Trump has been previewing his ” artistically designed steel slats” for the southern border wall for weeks now, the White House is now trying to reframe the use of steel instead of concrete as a concession to Democrats.

“If [Trump] has to give up a concrete wall, replace it with a steel fence in order to do that so that Democrats can say, ‘See? He’s not building a wall anymore,’ that should help move us in the right direction,” said new White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Sunday.

Mulvaney is not in an enviable position, and the stagnation of both parties have truly limited his options in messaging. But to tout a proposal that the president himself has pushed for nearly a month, prior to the government shutdown, as a novel concession to bring Democrats to the table is simply laughable.

For better or worse, Trump has made some form of a permanent and physical barrier along the southern border his hill to die on. Failure to follow through would cost him the support not of his loudest cheerleaders (though much of his base would still stick with him). And as the government shutdown approaches record lengths, it is apparent that Trump knows this as well.

So Trump cannot be so naive as to believe that any Democrat with a voice in the room cares one iota if the wall is made of steel instead of concrete. The aesthetics of the wall don’t matter one lick to Democratic leadership, which is rapidly embracing open borders extremism. If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., one of the few remaining adults in the Democratic Party, calls a simple physical barrier along the southern border “immoral,” why would anyone an inch to the left of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., be won over to the wall because it’s now to be made of steel?

Trump is left with few options. In all fairness, he did put himself in this situation, largely ignoring his key campaign promise for the past year and waiting to sound the alarm just as Democrats were about to take back the House. But there is one remaining option that will all but guarantee Trump a political win even if it fails to provide him a policy one.

If Trump began to use his troll powers for the productive instead of the pathetic, he could paint a stark and damning choice for Democrats: finally issue permanent and long-promised amnesty to 700,000 Dreamers (They are innocent, hard-working Americans in all but the law who came here through no fault of their own) in exchange for a measly $5 billion, a mere drop in the bucket compared to the trillions we throw away annually. The Democrats would be backed into two equally unpalatable options.

First, the Democrats could cave. They seethe at the prospect of giving Trump anything, even it’s more an avatar of his supporters’ feelings than a meaningful measure. But forcing Trump to grant amnesty to Dreamers would tick off Ann Coulter just enough that they might actually take it, provided (and this is a massive stipulation) messaging from the Republicans but more importantly Trump himself remaining constant, vocal, and indignant.

Then, if the Democrats refuse to concede, Trump could point out the obvious: the Democratic leadership prefers to use DACA recipients as political pawns to posture when they need to make Republicans look bad. This wouldn’t be good for Trump, but then if he ultimately signs a spending bill with no wall funding, he can honestly say, “Look, I sat down at the negotiating table and offered the Democrats a chance to fulfill one of their most significant campaign promises as long as they let me do the same with mine. Everyone could have gotten a win, but instead they chose hating me over helping 700,000 people.”

Steel slats do not achieve this. Sure, they’re inoffensive to the base, but the art of deal involves actual compromise, not kabuki theater.