The Shutdown

When is a wall a penis?

Shortly after the current government shutdown began, Nancy Pelosi suggested that Our President viewed the battle over the Great Wall of Tr*mp as a test of his manhood.  All indications are that she was right on the mark.

The border wall, from the first days of the Tr*mp campaign, has been more symbol than substance.  Anybody who pays attention understands that migration is driven primarily by push factors — intolerable conditions in the migrant's country of origin.  When one escape route is shut down, migrants inevitably find others.  Neither concrete nor steel slats nor pits filled with crocodiles will stop them.

A wall is a powerful symbol, though.  For Tr*mp's xenophobic base, it embodies Fortress America, protection against the terrifying Other threatening its comfortable concepts of all that is good and true (and white.)  To Tr*mp himself, it really has come to embody his aggressive, hyper-macho, and increasingly threatened sense of self.  If he didn't happen to be President of the United States, it  would be pitiful.

To the 800,000 government workers currently going without pay — plus who knows how many private contract workers who never will be paid for their lost hours — that presents a major problem.  How long will it take before Our President tires of flashing his increasingly shriveled little penis at the world?  And how long will it take before Democrats offer whatever token concessions he'll need to at least tuck himself back in, if not zip his fly?

Your guess is as good as mine.