Dear Mr. Trump,

It’s time to declare victory!

End the shutdown now, and you can become famous! Here’s all you have to do:

1. Claim that you won! Your base will believe anything, so what do you have to lose?

 

2. Claim that your shutdown of the government did its main job: it made the entire country conscious of the need (or lack thereof) for a wall and for stronger border security. Say that this was always your objective, right from the start, i.e., merely to generate a conversation.

 

3. Claim that your shutdown of the government did its other important job: it illustrated the difficulty you have dealing with the Democrats in Congress. Say that this was your subsidiary objective right from the start, i.e., to demonstrate that divided government doesn’t work, that we should never again have a Republican president and Democratic House of Representatives. The people who know you for what you really are will get the message loud and clear.

 

4. Claim that, by ending the shutdown, you demonstrated once and for all that you are caring person, that it troubles you greatly when those who are inferior to you – everyone, in your estimation – have to struggle to put food on the table and pay their bills. Someone out there, surely, in a nation of 330 million people, will believe you.

With so many excellent reasons for saying that you won, how can you not want to stop the shutdown immediately?

Time to declare victory and get out of Cambodia!

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger