BORDER/CONGRESS/GOVERNMENT/POLLS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “Seven percent of Americans against the border wall believe that Congress should fund President Donald Trump’s wall on the U.S.-Mexico border if that is the only way to end the government shutdown. That fact is an enormous opportunity to change the dynamic between this Congress and this president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should address the nation and make the following offer to Trump: If he ends the shutdown now, Democrats will promise to negotiate to fund construction of the border wall after he has won an election in which that policy was a central issue. This is the critical fact that too much of the current debate seems to miss: Trump has no democratic mandate for his wall, and therefore no constitutionally moral justification to leverage the enormous power of the presidency to force Congress to accept it. Putting aside the argument about whether a president who is selected after winning not even a plurality of the vote could have any mandate at all, it is clear that the only mandate Trump could claim from 2016 is for a wall ‘paid for by Mexico.’”
–Lawrence Lessig, “Trump holds US hostage to border wall it doesn’t support. That’s extortion, not leadership.,” USA Today, January 25, 2019 2:06 pm