Source:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit
The reactions to Trump’s White House speech offering a
compromise to get the Wall funded and stop the partial government shutdown were in many ways predictable.
Ann Coulter was apoplectic, the mainstream media called President Trump more
names, and Democrat leadership Schumer and Pelosi rejected his proposal
out-of-hand. Some conservative commentators were of the opinion that Trump knew
full well his proposal would be rejected by the Democrats, putting them in the
intransigence column in order to pacify their hard-to-the-left base, while not seriously advancing any real concessions to Dreamers. Maybe.
But one of the more interesting takes was at Chicago Boyz
and linked via American Thinker:
For those who are unfamiliar with
the term, a ‘Xanatos Gambit’ is a plan for which all foreseeable outcomes
benefit the creator — including ones that superficially appear to be
failure.
And here’s the theoretical application to the Wall stand-off:
President Trump’s “Big
Macs served at the White House” and grounding
Speaker Pelosi’s Congressional Junkets on military transports during a
government shut down over funding “The Wall” are both very much in that
“Xanatos Gambit” frame work. President Trump is staying on the offensive
so House Democrats and the media cannot “get off a shot” over the Government shut
down.
More at all the links.
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