According to the latest poll from the PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist, 57 percent of registered voters said they would definitely vote against Trump. The margin of error is 4.2 percent.
This could be it. This could be the end of the Trump presidency.
If these numbers hold, Trump can not win re-election. It is unclear at present if these numbers will hold, or if they merely reflect the present dissatisfaction with his creation and handling of the shutdown. People are blaming him.
Trump is stuck between bad and worse: it is bad for him for the shutdown to continue. It’s worse for him to compromise. If he doesn’t get his wall, Ann Coulter, Rush Windbag and a good 10% of his base will abandon him.
As much as it hurts the country, the shutdown is hurting Trump and the Republicans more.
So how could this be the end for Trump? Well, Trump cannot let the shutdown continue, and he can’t give in, and so long as the shutdown is front page news, that’s the story.
So long as the shutdown is front page news…
Trump must change the story. He can do this by declaring a national emergency. He could invade somewhere. He could use an explicitly racist slur. He could do many things. But all of these options would split the Republicans, because they can read polls as well as any of us can, and they have zero loyalty to Trump.
Once the party is split, well, that means all bets are off with “that Russia Thing,” and the Mueller investigation.
And I think we all have a pretty good idea about how much Trump conspired with the Russians.