Now for the real deal -- what is a 'wall'?
"Build that wall" became Trump's defining chant at his rallies. According to Joshua Green's book "Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Nationalist Uprising," the "wall" was a mnemonic device to help Trump remember to refer to the immigration issue, a sure crowd-pleaser.
Footnote: One of the advisers was Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend who was arrested Friday in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race. Small world, Washington.
Yet Trump was about to back away in December from his commitment to a wall-or-shutdown until conservative author-columnist Ann Coulter stepped in. The author of "In Trump We Trust" scorched her former hero in a column, titled "Gutless President in Wall-less Country." Other immigration-skeptic conservatives joined in the scorching.
Suddenly Trump turned away from the bipartisan bill he was about to sign and instead made new demands of a border wall. But there was no way the new Democrat-controlled House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi was going to approve what sounded like a wall, although that left a long menu of other border security measures, including drones, sensors and additional Border Patrol personnel that would be more effective than an old-fashioned wall.
I see signs of hope, however modest, in Trump's evolving rhetoric. He has begun to describe his proposal as "a wall, a fence or whatever you want to call it." He also conceded that a "barrier" could be a fence or "steel slats," among other possibilities. That did not impress Speaker Pelosi much. "Beaded curtain," she sarcastically offered.
But that sounded to me and many others like a hint. Maybe the president was getting tired of this single issue, especially as it began to take a noticeable toll on his approval ratings. Estimates were reported of 1 in 5 Americans being affected directly and negatively by the shutdown. Some fraying was even beginning to show around the edges of Trump's base.
If things follow the traditional pattern in Trump's Washington, I expect to see both parties extract as many concessions as they can in negotiations, pressured by the possibility of another shutdown that nobody wants. With Democrats receiving almost none of the blame for the shutdown compared with President Trump, who naively let himself take "the blame" for it even before it happened, I don't expect them to surrender their wall opposition while they're ahead.
But I also don't expect Trump to do anything so blatantly obvious as to give up either. Instead, I predict the debate will turn on a barrier of some sort and, regardless of whatever it is, I expect President Trump to call it a wall. He's never allowed himself to be confined very long to actual facts. Why should he start now?
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2019 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
