There goes everything

| 10:15 pm EST December 20, 2018
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House Republicans have decided to cower to Donald Trump to the bitter end. For them, the end is in two weeks, when they lose the majority. For Trump, the end may not be all that much longer, at the rate things are going. The House GOP has just effectively voted to shut down the federal government over Trump’s imaginary border wall, meaning we’ll officially be shut down within hours. So now what?

Donald Trump went on live national television last week and announced that he was willing to take the blame for the government shutdown. Then he decided earlier this week to cave on his wall demands, and keep the government open. Then, as a number of prominent members of Trump’s base began to rebel against him overnight, Trump decided today to force a shutdown after all. This is solely his shutdown, and he and his party will take the blame. But it’s the least of Trump’s problems right now.

Most Americans will see this as Donald Trump trying to take the country hostage as he comes closer to being ousted for his various criminal scandals. The stock market is already in freefall this month, thanks to Trump’s failed economic policies and the instability brought by the increasingly illegitimate nature of his presidency. The DJIA futures are already down several hundred points tonight, which suggests the market may fully crash tomorrow, and most people will blame Trump for that.

This comes even as leaders of both parties express their exasperation at Donald Trump for having nudged respected Secretary of Defense James Mattis out the door. And of course Mattis’ resignation letter makes clear that Trump is doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding by abruptly pulling out of Syria. Trump is a compromised criminal who has no idea what he’s doing – and today’s cascading disasters only serve to shine a spotlight on all of it.