In a private conversation with the contributors and mods, Fannie said, which I am sharing with her permission: "So, maybe this has already been said, but the shutdown seems like Trump taking his ball and going home because he lost the House in the midterms. This also seems like a preview of how he would react if he loses the 2020 election, simply find some way to nullify the result."
To which I responded: "Yeah. It's vindictive. It's an attempt to obviate the Democrats' oversight powers. It's a way to hurt federal workers, especially intelligence employees, about whom he's convinced they're all Democrats out to hurt him. It's a way of weakening and diminishing the size of the federal government (they're not going to fill all of the roles left vacant by people who quit). It's a way of justifying privatization. It's a way of leaving our infrastructure vulnerable to hacking and attack. There's a whole lot going on. And the wall is a red herring."
It's also pickled herring, with pickled herring being a real thing that some people inexplicably want. (Sorry, lovers of pickled herring!) By which I mean: As much as the wall is just a symbol and a misdirection, it's also a real thing that Trump and many of his deplorables want to build, mostly to prove a point about their own (white) power.
The shutdown is about a wall, and what it represents. It's also about a lot of other things.
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