If the shutdown was successfully galvanizing his supporters, you would expect fiery exhortations from Fox News anchors to attract the eyeballs of Trump’s base. But on the first Wednesday and Thursday of the new year, all of Fox News’ prime-time shows scored viewership below their daily averages for 2018. Fox News’ tentpole show, Hannity, which averaged 3.3 million daily viewers in 2018, hasn’t reached 3 million since December 12th, a week before the shutdown began…

One can sense Trump trying to inject a fresh storyline into the shutdown by teasing a “national emergency” that would grant him the authority to divert Pentagon funds into a border wall. But where does that plot development go? Court challenges over the president’s constitutional authority? Local property owners on the border resisting eminent domain? Exciting for legal scholars. Many CNN bookings for Jeffrey Toobin and Alan Dershowitz. Snoresville for everyone else.

Shutdowns typically end because one side—always the instigating side—shoulders the blame in the polls, recognizes it needs to stop the political bleeding and capitulates. Trump, the indisputable instigator of this shutdown, is not expected to follow suit. Constantly catering to his base, Trump displays no interest in appealing to the political middle and clearing 50 percent job approval.