As you may recall, Donald Trump stumbled into the current partial government shutdown in December after right-wing gabbers scorned him for signaling he might back down from his earlier boasts about being willing to close the government if his border-wall demands weren’t satisfied. Two voices were especially influential, as the Washington Post observed at the time:
On his radio show Wednesday, Limbaugh said the president was “getting ready to cave” on getting money for the wall in the budget.
“It’s a textbook example of what the drive-by media calls compromise,” Limbaugh said. “Trump gets nothing, and the Democrats get everything, including control of the House.”
Coulter, during a podcast on the Daily Caller, said Trump’s White House would become “a joke presidency that scammed the American people” if he didn’t build the wall, adding that “he’ll have no legacy whatsoever.” She also wrote a scathing column about the president and launched a flurry of criticisms on Twitter.
So anyone adding up all the mounting pressure on Trump to stop the madness and end the shutdown — you know, the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been furloughed or who are working without pay, the services not being performed, and the benefits that are being threatened — should pay attention to what Limbaugh and Coulter are saying right now. Here’s Rush today:
I’m just gonna tell you point-blank: Donald Trump can win this if he hangs on. It’s gonna be few more weeks. It’s gonna be risky.
But I actually, folks, really believe that if he hangs on and continues down this road, at some point there’s gonna be a shift in public opinion and the vast majority of the American people are gonna end up with him on this — if he hangs in there. He’s got a good start. There’s all kinds of really good, long overdue things happening that we’ve wanted to happen. Like 95% of the EPA furloughed? A lot of nonessential government workers on furlough?
This is exactly what we’ve wanted.
Nice. Here’s Coulter last night:
[R]ecently in the last couple of weeks, we’ve reeled him back. I mean, the one thing I think — not only with Trump — I — you’d think especially with Trump but with anyone, is self-preservation and self-esteem …
It is self-preservation because he is dead in the water if he doesn’t build that wall. Dead, dead, dead.
So let’s recapitulate: In one of Trump’s ears he is hearing from every direction about all the objective problems his shutdown is causing, which will only grow worse with time, and he’s hearing that he’s not going to get his way unless he declares a national emergency, and even then it could all blow up on him.
In the other ear Trump is hearing from people like Limbaugh and Coulter.
Who do you think really has his ear?
Yeah, me too.
