WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th December, 2018) US President Donald Trump and the Democratic Party have zero incentives to end the political theatrics and reopen the Federal government for fear of alienating their respective bases in a country that is deeply divided along cultural lines, analysts told Sputnik.
Friday marked the seventh straight day of a partial government shutdown resulting from a dispute over $5 billion Trump wants in next year's budget to build a wall on the US-Mexico border - a demand Democratic lawmakers have refused to meet. Last week Trump rejected a Democratic deal that included $1.3 billion in border funding.
The two sides are no closer to breaking the stalemate and, in fact, the gap seems to be widening. Trump in a tweet earlier in the day threatened to close the southern border if he does not get the border funding. The continuing partial US government shutdown is likely to continue into 2019, members of the House of Representatives and Senate said before adjourning on Thursday.
The outcome of the November 2018 elections gave the Democrats control of the House of Representatives but strengthened Republican control of the Senate. The turn of events only reinforced the Manichean mindset that has gripped the nation's capital, according to experts.
University of Houston Professor of History and political commentator Gerald Horne told Sputnik the deadlock was an expression of deeply felt political assessments on both sides of the divide.
"Mr. Trump fears he will lose part of his base if he goes soft on the two issues of immigration and building the border wall," Horne said on Friday. "Trump feels that always does well and always wins when he takes a hard and uncompromising line on them both."
The Democrats too were convinced that they had no incentive to compromise, Horne added.
"They [Democrats] believe they made their advances in November and regained control of the House because they were uncompromising in attacking Trump and because national outrage against him is so great. So there is no political benefit for them in being seen to compromise with him," Horne argued.
Many Republicans in Congress are afraid that their support will vanish if they defy Trump and are targeted personally by his Twitter attacks, especially on these two issues, Horne said.
"They fear the Republican base will then turn on them, especially if Trump mobilizes them with his Tweets," the expert said.
The underlying reality behind the continued government shutdown was that the United States was deeply divided into two political and cultural tribes, Horne pointed out.
"They hate each other and cannot stand living with each other," Horne said. "As a British comedian recently said, what the United States might now need is a two state solution."
Currently there is nearly 600 miles worth of barrier, primarily consisting of 16-foot high fencing, along the 1,900-mile US-Mexico border. Trump wants to erect steel and/or concrete walls over 30 feet tall on more than 200 miles of the border that would include new and replacement barriers.
So, Democrats have approved of constructing barriers on the southern border in the past, they just, apparently, disagree with the type of barriers Trump wants to erect.
Trump in his tweet on Friday also claimed that another migrant caravan was forming in Honduras, a comment that drew condemnation from Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein who accused the president of stoking fears to justify a border wall.
Political commentator and Professor John Walsh told Sputnik that both sides in the political stand-off were indulging in theatrics for the benefit of their supporters.
"This issue seems to be Kabuki political theater once again," Walsh said. "If Trump loses, he can tell his base he went to the mat but the Dems were recalcitrant."
Walsh observed that both sides in US politics still agreed on fundamental issues - rightly or wrongly - related to issues like waging war. However, on the issues generating the shutdown both sides believed they could still indulge in political grandstanding.
"How do I know it is not an issue of great moment? On real issues like withdrawal from Syria there is no partisan divide," he said.
On December 19, the White House announced the United States would withdraw all 2,000 troops from Syria within 60 to 100 days given that the Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia) had been defeated. US Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned the following day, citing the fact his views were no longer aligned with Trump's. Mattis' departure sparked outrage among both Republicans and Democrats who attacked the president's decision through every vehicle imaginable.
Walsh pointed out that unlike the immigration and border wall issues Trump still faced a united political consensus opposing his planned withdrawal of US ground forces from Syria.
"On Syrian withdrawal there is virtual unanimity and virtually all of Congress, including the supposed antiwar pols, either opposed the withdrawal from Syria or said nothing about it," Walsh concluded. "That is how I know this is Kabuki Theater."
