Americans are embarking on the longest year of their lives, which will last until the presidential elections in November 2020. It is anybody’s guess at what point Donald Trump will agree to reopen the US federal government. But it is a sure bet Congress will not give him serious money to build a Mexico border wall. This presents Mr Trump with a dilemma, which will intensify as his re-election bid looms. It is doubtful his political career would have taken off had he not vowed to build a wall, yet he will be increasingly powerless to honour that promise.
Over the next 20 months, Mr Trump must therefore continue finding ways to blame Democrats for thwarting the will of the American people. In so doing, he will act out his version of Winston Churchill’s definition of a fanatic — “someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”. As a hostage to fortune of his own making, Mr Trump’s only hope of avoiding humiliation is to take US politics hostage.
Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, often says that Mr Trump has zero chance of being re-elected if he fails to build that wall. In practice, Mr Trump could still win without it. Two compulsions will ensure he stays on the subject between now and then. The first is a lack of anything better to talk about. In terms of Mr Trump’s domestic agenda, the Mexico wall is basically all that is left. The only big steps he has taken are signing the $1.5tn tax cut in late 2017, and appointing two conservatives to the Supreme Court. Any Republican president would have done the same.