"More Americans blame President Donald Trump than congressional Democrats for the partial U.S. government shutdown," reports NBC News. Thirty-three percent blame the Dems, however "Forty-seven percent of adults in the U.S. hold Trump responsible … according to [an Ipsos] Dec. 21-25 poll."
Forty-seven percent. Rather, only 47 percent.
Let us review the words of, uh, probable responsibility — straight from the man who, it sure seems, is probably responsible for the government shutdown, since he most definitely claimed full responsibility:
I will take the mantle of shutting [the government] down.
I will shut it down for border security.
I am proud to shut down the government for border security because the people of this country don't want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country.
So I will take the mantle.
I will be the one to shut it down.
I'm not going to blame [Democrats] for it.
If we don't get what we want one way or the other ... I will shut down the government.
It's true that others see other ways in which to read those statements from Trump, but I read them as I will take the mantle of shutting the government down, in fact I am proud to shut down the government. I suppose my interpretive powers may simply be keener than others' — those others, it's true, being the ones who constitute 53 percent of the American public.
Yet in this post-reality, or post-truth, world, anything can be true, as long as one wishes it to be true. Thus it follows that it is passably untrue that Trump, in a scarce moment of truthfulness, intended to shut down the government. Perhaps I only wish that to be true, this business of Trump saying I will be the one to shut the government down. It's also true that a majority wish that that not be true, hence it's untruthful to say that Trump truly meant I will take the mantle of shutting the government down.
Philosopher and part-time poet William Shakespeare wrote ,"This above all; to thine own self be true." That's truly beautiful, for in a few words that's all we're being when we untruthfully say that which is true is untrue. Or at least 53 percent of us are. And that's the truth.