On Monday, Donald Trump issued an infrastructure plan that was seen as a burden on states, an attack on blue states, a fantasy that calls on money to magically appear, and a fraction of the necessary investment. But apparently whoever had the early morning Trump whisperer duty told him it went over well.
The military got a boost in funds in the just-passed budget, and while not a dime of that money has yet been spent, apparently the military is now fine—presumably meaning that Trump will now switch from constant mentions of the supposedly-broken military, to constant mentions of how he supposedly-fixed the supposedly-broken military. But Trump’s infrastructure plan has received great reviews ...where? Even Fox News noted that Trump’s budget, of which the plan was a part, would “see the federal deficit once again rising past $1 trillion in the near-term” and that not just Democrats but such rock-solid Republican supporters as the Chamber of Commerce slammed the plan. Still, Trump didn’t spend much time thinking about.
Yes, there will never be another chance … because some insane jackass has decided to place an arbitrary deadline on the crisis he created then sit back to sneer as everyone tries to clean up the absolutely unnecessary mess.
Creating this kind of self-imposed deadline is a tactic that is apparently beloved of Trump in big business deals. Or at least, it’s a tactic beloved of Donald Trump, the character created in books like Art of the Deal, and who shares nothing with the actual Trump but a name. In actual big business deals, Trump’s tactics mostly include getting flattered, saying what he’s told, and agreeing to never ask about where the money is really coming from.
But now Trump has the chance to pretend to be Donald Trump, billionaire, on the grand stage, and part of that pretense is creating the kind of put-up-or-shut-up drama that Trump was never in position to use in real life. He can use it now because there’s no losing position for Trump. He knows that—whether it’s an infrastructure plan that doesn’t have either dollars or details, or a DACA solution that involves putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk simply to watch all the ants scramble—the same forces that created the fictional Donald Trump will work overtime to maintain the fiction.
A DACA plan comes together? Trump wins! His brilliant tactics forced movement on a crisis that’s existed—ever since he created it. It doesn’t? Trump wins, because Democrats—and 800,000 dreamers—lose. If nothing comes together by March 5, you can bet the morning headlines on Fox will be “Trump creates 800,000 new job opportunities for real Americans!”
Trump’s infrastructure plan … has already failed. Because not only can state and local governments not pick up 80-plus percent of the cost on every project, private industry has less than no interest in owning rural sewage plants, miles of water pipes, and the other unglamorous but absolutely necessary bits of hardware. And even the less than 20 percent of the funds that Trump is suggesting the federal government cough up has no source other than a vaguely defined plan to cut something else (Medicare. Because it’s always Medicare).
But after being soothed that people really loved his infrastructure fantasy, and shaking his finger over his insta-crisis, Trump apparently felt calm enough to get back to sleep. Or executive time. Same thing.