A government shutdown is quiet, but its logic is that of war. So the assertion that Donald Trump has no graceful exit from his latest impasse is true but superfluous. War never has a smooth exit except via victory, and that goes for Democrats as well as Trump. The difference between this shutdown and the last is that Democrats hold the superior hand. In January 2018, when things last went to the brink, Democrats were a minority party threatening a shutdown on behalf of immigrants brought here illegally as children, the Dreamers, and the public wasn’t supportive of their tactics. This time, they are a majority party refusing to be forced into granting Trump’s request for a border wall, a wall opposed by most voters. Voters are blaming Trump for the shutdown, Republicans in Congress are getting squirmy, and Trump’s approval ratings are sinking. Politically speaking, Democrats believe they’ve got this one in the hand, and they’re probably right.

That said, war is unpredictable. If the imbalance of power is extreme, the conflict ends in quick defeat of one side. If there’s more parity, then the war can turn into a slog that becomes an issue in itself. Public opinion can move. The weak side can win after all. Or both sides might come back to a familiar deal that neither would have considered acceptable until it had tested its strength. (Those pushing for compromise have the contempt of both sides at the start, less so at the end.) So let’s look at the five principal possibilities for how the shutdown ends, in decreasing order of likelihood.

Outcome 1: Donald Trump caves

There are many ways to lose, of course, but let’s define “losing” here as the government reopening with no wall and no concessions from Democrats. It’s a possible outcome. For the first several weeks, both sides hold firm. The fight is crucial, and the pain is still manageable, except for those enduring life without bi-weekly paychecks. Then the pain spikes, and voters get angrier. Whoever is seen as the cause of the shutdown suffers for it, and that means Trump and the G.O.P.

A month from now, if the shutdown continues, Congressional Republicans in purple districts or states will be caught between Scylla and Charybdis, with furious constituents on one side and adamant party leadership on the other. Many will beg Trump to relent. Senator Lindsey Graham, who had tried to capitalize on the moment to engineer a deal with a wall for Trump and legalization for the Dreamers (a priority for Graham), is now urging Donald Trump to reopen government and resume negotiations with Democrats—i.e. fold for now. If Trump continues to say no, Republicans may resort to implicit threats (they’ve got a few they can use) or even flip in desperation and join Democrats in overriding his veto.

Add to this that Donald Trump, for all his talk, hates watching his numbers tank. The child-separation storm last summer had him blaming Democrats first and then rescinding the policy days later. He may wind up taking Graham’s advice.

But party loyalty is important, and most Republicans don’t want a weak president who fails to deliver on his central promise. They and Trump figure that the next big election is over 18 months away, and voters nowadays have short memories. Those with long memories make up your base, and you have to please your base. The probability of Trump’s outright loss can’t be more than one in three.

Outcome 2: Trump declares an emergency and orders wall construction

Very few people like this option, but some people are hoping for it. For Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike, it provides a way out. No one has to show up and be counted. Trump saves face. Some MAGA-heads applaud. Republicans offer support. Democrats speak of abuse of power. The ship of state sinks a little lower.

At the same time, the opponents of Trump will go nuclear, and even some of his allies will blanch. The courts will likely get in the way, allowing Trump to say he tried and shift blame, but nobody is pleased in the long run. Everyone with a minimal amount of foresight sees that precedents of this sort by a Republican president will encourage the same from a Democratic president.

An emergency declaration is tempting enough to put the odds at one in two, but even Republicans are divided about it, and Trump knows it’d be a desperate, possibly futile, act.

Outcome 3: Trump makes major immigration concessions to get some wall funding

One complication of the current standoff is that there’s a temptation to win by losing or lose by winning. By this I mean that Trump, in his eagerness to deliver on his central campaign promise of a wall, might offer so many non-wall-related concessions to Democrats that he infuriates his base. Similarly, Democrats, in their eagerness to foil Trump in his central campaign promise, might offer so many concessions to the White House on enforcement that they infuriate the savvy members in their base.

This is an examination of scenario one. So far, Trump has told those hoping to make amnesty-related deals (i.e. granting Dreamers legal status) to forget about it, but that could change. He wants his wall, and he might grant a lot to obtain it. People like Mick Mulvaney and Jared Kushner would be relieved. Part of Trump’s base might tolerate a Dreamer amnesty in exchange for wall funding. But the savviest know it’s Trump’s strongest card and would howl in rage over such a meager win.

Outcome 4: Democrats agree to major enforcement measures in order to prevent the wall

For all the advantages of the Democrats’ hand, they have a general vulnerability on immigration policy—mainly that they’re to the left of the median, and they tend to treat enforcement as a concession. But the wall showdown is forcing them to state that they support border enforcement in its own right. That creates an opening for Trump to put Democrats on the spot over other forms of enforcement. If Trump agreed to give up on wall funding this year in exchange for, say, a national E-verify requirement and an entry/exit tracking system, some of his supporters would be furious, and gullible Democrats might cheer, but it would be a much bigger victory for border hawks. But one in nine is an optimistic set of odds.

Outcome 5: Democrats concede

For now, Democrats are sitting too well to surrender. They see the same landscape Trump does, and they think their position strengthens as the days go by. Nevertheless, as strong as Democratic positioning seems to be, it does rest on two core assumptions: that voters don’t want any more fencing on the border, and that voters support the principle of keeping shutdown ultimatums from determining policy. These assumptions might hold, but they also might not.

Start with opposition to the wall. Voters give a thumbs-down to a border wall, in the abstract, but ask them if they’d support a few hundred miles of new fencing, and the polls might look different. Trump is now asking for a couple hundred miles of steel slats—he’d say fencing, if it wouldn’t anger his base—and Democrats are saying no. Their reasons are vague, since they aren’t arguing that we should tear down existing barriers, and a message of “we have the perfect amount of fencing already” could start to look like a lack of seriousness about border control. Democrats from purple regions are especially sensitive to this.

Now consider the voter appreciation of the principles at stake. Democrats are in the right to insist that Trump is taking the approach of throwing a tantrum. Give in to such tactics, and you’ll get more shutdown threats. But pain is pain, and, as the shutdown starts to hurt, voters will recognize that Democrats, regardless of who’s right, have the power to reopen government for a small price tag, by budgetary standards. They might say that principle can go hang.

Finally, there’s a far-fetched possibility, one floated by an anonymous “senior Trump official” in an op-ed for the Daily Caller, that the government shutdown turns into a victory for small government, as Americans start to realize how little they miss the non-essential parts of Uncle Sam. Trump achieves the conservative dream.

But all of this, even the less crazy stuff, is still unlikely. People don’t like government shutdowns, and they see this as Trump’s shutdown.

Global apocalypse

It’s unlikely, but not as unlikely as you might think. In the final estimation, we must aver that Noah’s flood or a planet-destroying meteor would end everything and thus constitute a sixth end to the shutdown. But just because the United States might merit God’s punishment doesn’t mean Uruguay, Norway, or Japan does. So let’s hope for options one through five.

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