[TheRealThing]

I am am also a novice with no experience in politics and Trump has received exactly the treatment that I expected he would receive from the media, Democrats, and the Republican Party establishment.

He took office with very little support from the sources that a traditional Republican president would have typically received. He has been received much as a conservative independent candidate elected president would have faced. When one steps into a den of poisonous snakes, why would one expect the snakes not to strike?

That not withstanding, Trump was not drafted into the position of U.S. President - he volunteered and he won an election. He made illegal immigration his number one priority, threatened to veto spending bills sent to his desk by members of his own party and then repeatedly failed to do so. Now, he has retreated from a battle with Democrats and RINOs that should have been fought in 2017.

Maybe Trump will manage to pull a rabbit from his hat, but at this point it appears to me that he is a lame duck, one term president. He is not solely responsible for not securing border funding, but he is solely responsible for choosing not fight this battle when he had an excellent chance of winning.

I have also not written a book on negotiating, but even I know that you should not make concessions in a negotiation without getting something in return. President Trump chose his battleground and proceeded to negotiate from a very weak position with an adversary who has simply said, "No" to all attempts to reach a compromise.

That rearward facing 20/20 has the advantage over looking forward, does it not? Makes geniuses out of naysayers every darn day. Those concessions were rejected by the other side. It's not like they're established law. Trump has done wonders with the economy to include raising this country's pension plans from the dead. That alone affects everybody over 50 BTW. Trump recognized the true threat posed by our enemies back when Barack declared (and MANY bought) war as being a thing relegated to the 20th Century. With Trump's election, our military is therefore at least partially restored. And with Russian military hardware and contractors now on the ground in Venezuela, and China in control of the Panama Canal among many things, the restoration of the US Armed Services was also a high priority.

The point would be, there was a tremendous mess left behind by the last administration and the fixes would have been daunting even with the cooperation of his own party. But as you say the wall is very important too, and there's no denying that his failure to build the wall is in plain view. What is also obvious as well as obviously dismissible, is the fact that though the wall remains un-built, that no more excuses those in the government responsible for granting funding from their treachery, than it supports placing the complete blame on Trump. No administration ever faced such a veritable avalanche of lawsuits, and no administration ever faced an organized resistance such as we've seen in this one. Democrats are on TV 24/7 disputing the idea that a wall is even functional, much less necessary. That's not Trump's doing, that is the establishment in full on resistance mode. The same establishment and a media, which refuse to make so much as a mention of the threat posed by the dozens and maybe soon, hundreds of caravans.

If you're right and Trump is a lame duck one termer, at least you'll be able to gargle out a few crows as we're all going down. Unlike some, I don't see this time of US history as just a survivable hiccup. Nor do I see it as a social transformation which has any promise of continuing US sovereignty, much less dominance.