BUBBLICIOUS:

First, let's look at the new Post-ABC polling. Some highlights:

57 percent rate Trump's handling of border security negatively, a remarkable indictment of Trump on his signature issue.

61 percent say Trump is not honest or trustworthy.

58 percent say Trump lacks the personality and temperament to serve effectively as president.

56 percent say Trump has not brought needed change to Washington.

65 percent say Trump does not understand the problems of people like them.

58 percent say Trump is not good at making political deals.

64 percent do not have a lot of confidence that Trump will make the right decisions for the country's future. [...]

That Trump is consulting Dobbs for private advice about how to proceed -- even as he craters in polls -- perfectly captures the folly and delusion consuming this presidency at this particular moment. Trump watches Fox obsessively for validation, and he has very likely seen Dobbs tell him that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "whipped" him in the shutdown battle; that his only route forward is to declare a national emergency; and that recent leaks about the Russia probe were really about distracting the public from Democratic opposition to Trump's wall, as if that's somehow an unpopular position that Democrats fear holding.

In this mythology, the political threat to Trump does not come from the mounting legal travails he faces (all of that is a hoax and a witch hunt) or from Trump's malicious and deeply destructive shutdown for the sake of his deeply unpopular wall. Rather, the real political danger to Trump always comes from his failure to fight hard enough, whether it's failing to close down special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation, or failing to do whatever it takes -- declare a national emergency, shut down the government until the end of time -- to ensure that he gets the wall without giving up anything that might perturb his base in the slightest.

Tweet   @brothersjudd