Trump’s government shutdown risks a US constitutional crisis

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

The answer, apparently, is a partial government shutdown of the US government that has now lasted 16 days, making it the third longest federal shutdown in history, with little hope that it will end before it eclipses Bill Clinton’s record, over 1995-1996, which lasted 21 days.

Perhaps holding such “records” matters to Donald Trump. The problem for federal employees currently without paycheques is that politics only partially explains the reason why the Democrats are emboldened to present an immovable barrier to this President. Now in control of the House of Representatives, Democrats have no reason to give the President the $5.6 billion he has demanded to build his wall. They have no reason to add to the federal budget deficit that, under Trump, rose by £113 billion to $779 billion in 2018.

The wall is and has always been something of a psychological tic to the President, representing his grip on power, the grip he has on his base, but, perhaps most importantly of all, the grip that a few right-wing media figures have upon this White House. Firebrand-in-chief, Anne Coulter, has led the challenge to the President, claiming that without his wall, Trump’s administration will “just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while, but he’ll have no legacy whatsoever.”

Donald Trump, the unstoppable force in this equation, has now threatened to maintain the shutdown for months or years, which is extremely unlikely but indicative of how he doesn’t yet understand the weakness of his position, nor how this can and will damage him. Meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer over Christmas, he uttered the bad-tempered and now fateful words “I’ll take it” – meaning the blame for the shutdown – and compounded that by claiming “I am proud to shut down the government for border security”. And if any of that was meaningful, it might make for a proud and noble boast, but the facts simply don’t stack in his favour.

The threat posed by illegal immigration is negligible to the United States. Border crossings have been declining for years and, even if they had not, it is simply not cost effective to construct a physical wall along the 3,145-kilometre border. If Trump were to demand money for a very limited wall but, more pointedly, the technological solutions preferred by border agents and Democrats, then negotiations might have shown progress. Yet, so far, progress has looked unlikely with neither side willing to yield. And from the Democrat’s point of view, there is no reason to yield. If this were a game of chess, the Democrats would have Trump pinned in a checkmate that the President is unwilling to concede.

The only concessions that would be meaningful to Democrats are unconscionable to hard-line Republicans. The new acting White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, has artfully described the move away from Trump’s “beautiful” concrete wall to a steel slat design as a concession to Democrats but there’s no compromise about building a wall out of steel rather than concrete, given that it would probably cost more to build and more to maintain. A true compromise would denote weakness on behalf of Trump, a man who is pained by showing any sign of weakness. The wall has become greater than politics to the President. This is about legacy and history, as well as the self-worth of a man who is notoriously obsessive over his self-worth. There can be little surprise, therefore, that he is now considering more dramatic action.

Trump now threatens to call a “national emergency”, which would mean he unlocks presidential powers that are normally reserved for times of war and disaster. One should always be wary of throwing around words like “authoritarian” when speaking of democratically elected officials but here the threat is real. As with so much about the US Constitution, the legality of these measures is untested for a “worst case scenario”. The brakes on even the cheapest car are tested to destruction to ensure their safety but not the brakes on a constitution that allows a President to take control of the media and even deploy the military onto American streets. Trump has already spoken about grabbing land from private landowners along the Mexico border, using the “military version of eminent domain”. If Trump takes that step, as he has repeatedly threatened to do in recent days, then America will face a constitutional crisis.

The US system of government is deliberately constructed to ensure conflict between the branches of power. It is a system designed to promote compromise. It is not designed to tolerate narcissism on a scale to rival that of the pottier Roman Emperors. If Trump really intends to use emergency powers to pursue an outlandish campaign promise, then either the American Constitution or Trumpism will break against his wall.