Republican senators need to pull Trump into line

It can be hard to imagine, but 50 or 100 years ago Congress used to actually be a co-equal branch of government. Something like President Trump's shutdown never would have happened in those days, because Congress would usually assert itself when the president was being a delusional weirdo (hello, Andrew Johnson!). And that was exactly how the framers of the Constitution designed the separation of powers to work.

However, it's still true that Congress could end this shutdown tomorrow if they so desired. All it would take is a veto-proof majority in the House and the Senate. And it's long since time Senate Republicans started fulfilling their constitutional duty — perhaps starting with thinking strategically about their own party.

To repeat once more: Trump's explanation of his shutdown patently makes no sense even on its own terms. If the border wall is a national emergency, then why is he asking for such a pittance? (Five billion bucks could build maybe a couple hundred miles of fence, assuming the administration can even spend the money in the first place, which it has not before.) And on the other hand, if it's so urgent why on Earth did Trump wait two years until his party lost control of government to get the money? A wall would also be nearly useless for actually preventing border crossings, not to mention that most unauthorized immigrants overstay their visas rather than crossing.

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Of course, this is no coincidence. The shutdown is actually being driven by right-wing media and its crack-brained postmodern culture war. The empirical qualities or effects of the wall are completely irrelevant. What matters is that Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and others get a purely symbolic monument to anti-immigrant xenophobia — a device to trigger the libs, rub hate in the face of Latinos, and convince right-wing rubes that Republican government is doing something besides picking their pockets.

The key thing for Senate Republicans to understand is that conservative media fanatics don't particularly care about their electoral fortunes. The "right-wing media machine has no incentive to actually help Republicans govern — it thrives on conflict, not consensus," as Alex Pareene writes. That is why conservative media is taking no notice whatsoever of the fact that the shutdown is clearly a losing battle politically — the public (logically) blames Trump for the shutdown, and his approval rating is sliding fast even among his base. So why would Democrats fold if they are right on the merits, can't set a precedent of this hostage-taking working, and are winning politically?

Part of wise political strategy is knowing when to fight and when to cut one's losses and survive to fight another day. By far the best thing for the country and even the Republican Party would be for Senate Republicans to override Trump, reopen the government with a clean funding bill, and move on (no doubt another crisis is just around the corner).

There is also, you know, the whole "serving as the people's democratic representative" thing. Ideas like honor and duty have become tarnished beyond recognition in today's Republican Party, but it's just possible that the damage this senseless shutdown is inflicting on the country is starting to sink in. For instance, the associations of air traffic controllers, pilots, and flight attendants recently released a joint statement about the shutdown which stated: "[W]e cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break. It is unprecedented." It is entirely imaginable that Trump's shutdown is going to result in the deaths of large numbers of Americans.

I have absolutely zero expectation that any Senate Republican will read this article, let alone be convinced by it. However, something like this logic has already convinced Sens. Lisa Murkowsky (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine.), and most recently Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who have all signaled their support for a clean funding bill Thursday. That leaves the two sides tied, with Vice President Pence expected to side with Trump.

No doubt Gardner is mostly concerned with his re-election, as he is up in a fairly left-leaning state in 2020. But it would only take one more defection, so long as Majority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) allowed a vote. If Senate Republicans knew what was good for them, or cared about their fellow citizens, they would end this madness immediately.