More Like Chuck SCREWYOUmer

For any reasonable person, the correct response to Donald Trump’s proposed border wall between the United States and Mexico would be to call it what it is—immoral, ineffective, and racist.

With that in mind, the incorrect response to the wall would be to hem and haw, and then promise to pay him at least a billion and a half dollars anyway. Because, hey, gotta preserve that civility and those precious congressional norms, right?

Now go ahead and guess which option the most powerful Democrat in the United States Senate chose today.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats could, in fact, be convinced to shell out up to $1.6 billion to meet the president’s demand for increased border security in the upcoming year-end-spending bill. Failure to pass the bill would result in another government shutdown—something Trump has threatened if the bill doesn’t include money to (extremely MAGA chant voice) “Build! That! Wall!”

“We are for strong border security,” Schumer declared, giving a little fist pump in the air for emphasis.

Just as a reminder, this is the Democrat’s main man in the Senate capitulating on more than billion and a half dollars for a wholly unnecessary abomination that Trump himself repeatedly promised would be paid for by Mexico in the first place. Terrific.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. When asked by reporters whether Democrats would be willing to go over $1.6 billion, Schumer dodged, and answered simply that he didn’t negotiate through the press (which is a weird thing to say when you are literally staking out your negotiating position in a press briefing).

Schumer’s office later clarified to CNN’s Manu Raju that the $1.6 billion dollars wouldn’t be spent on a wall, per se. Instead it would go to other security measures. Measures like….a fence. But definitely not a wall. Got that? Good.

Still, Schumer seemed committed to acting like he was taking the high road here, declaring during his press conference that “if there’s any shutdown, it’s on President Trump’s back.”

As disheartening as this all seems, you can take some small measure of solace in the fact that it’s nothing if not predictable (and who doesn’t love predictability, right?). Every time there’s a spending bill and the threat of a government shutdown, Democrats—and Schumer specifically—putter around making various grunting sounds to demonstrate how utterly vexed they are by Trump’s awful, immoral demands, before caving in and playing themselves like a cool teen plays Fortnite.