Are the House Democrats committing suicide? Why?

If Nancy Pelosi has a high level of sanity, and if she saw the first Star Wars movie, the situation she is in now should remind her of the scene where the good guys got stuck in a garbage room, with the walls closing in, and no way out they could see except a door leading to the Imperial star troopers trying to kill them. It IS a box, and their survival depends on seeing that there IS a way out of the box. Metaphors are important to understanding the situation well enough to see the way out. (Equations are better, but life taught me long ago to translate the math into metaphors when speaking to 99% of the people of earth.) I did propose a way out a few days ago (https://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2019/01/letter-sent-to-my-congressman-about-how.html), but maybe I need to explain a bit more why we need it, how it would work and why certain details are important.

I am very impressed by those CNN reporters who have asked House members on their show: when will the Democrats put something themselves on the table, a real compromise? I was deeply depressed by the confused feelings (ultimately suicidal) of some of the people who replied by saying "this is about border security" and "we can't get substantive because it would set a bad precedent." No, not quite. those are understandable thoughts, but survival depends on getting past understandable inhibitions to seeing a way out beyond them.

First, IS it about border security? Does it HAVE to be, or that a losing constraint?

Let me stry to explain with another metaphor, more useful and precise than the Star Wars metaphor here. Relations between Democrats and Republicans have become more and more like relations between Russians and Americans at the height of the Cold War. We can make lemonade out of those lemons: we can learn from the very serious and deep literature from that time on how to avoid total destruction and get better outcomes. (In those days, I took seminars from Hermann Kahn and Tom Schelling, and courses from many others aware of that literature, including advanced game theory. )

At the height of the Cold War, a guy named Henry Kissinger showed up and proposed "linkage politics." He proposed that negotiations with Russia should COMBINE several key ideas together in one negotiation. Pelosi CAN extend the agenda beyond just border security, if she so chooses. She has very good reason to do so here, since NO motion which the House could pass on border security alone would be anything but a disaster in the end.

Back at the time of Kissinger, there were lots of intense debates for and against linkage politics. In the end, there were good arguments for and good arguments against; the best choice depends on the situation. Linkage politics CAN cause breakdown due to complexity and confusion; that is why my proposal calls for just three very clear, very transparent demands ONLY to be attached to funding for the wall (and restarting the government). Even that complexity is justified ONLY when the issues in the narrow scope (here, border security) are simply not balanced enough in terms of importance to the parties. Pelosi knows full well that even a strengthened version of Trump's proposal, giving permanent relief on Dakka, would appear as caving in and embolden Trump in ways she would not like. That is why issues from OUTSIDE the realm of border security are the best hope of creating enough REAL balance.

One reason I like my little proposal for a House bill is that it puts a spotlight on Trump and the Senate, forcing them to make a very public choice. I love situations where people are asked to judge themselves, and not be judged by others. (It is a basic option in game theory, dating back in a way to the old Pari Pascal.) IF Trump hates the ideas of upholding the spirit of the Constitution (as embedded in the Muller report and public disclosure) or averting a bloodbath of the Kurds endangering our ability to limit the expansion of the worst sort of fundamentalist jihadism, then even if he vetoes the bill he will be sending a VERY strong signal to folks who previously supported him. Doing that at a time of shutdown would not embolden him at all. (Likewise the Senate of course. It is good that Pelosi is already on to THEIR bag of tricks.) But if he agrees, under the new public pressure, I doubt it would embolden Trump to create such opportunities for Pelosi again.

It's nice that so many people in DC rightly care about Daca folks. They should continue to talk about that in the future. But here and now, the threat of a new genocide of our allies in the Middle East is simply bigger and more urgent. Could it be that more people know about Muller and about ISIS than about Daca? People like the swing voters? If each side believes the advisors who say "just wait for the other guy to totally publicly cave"... well, they should know by now not to just believe whatever they wish were true.