In a press conference yesterday, President Trump tossed out two tasty nuggets regarding the ongoing government kinda-sorta shutdown and the border wall.

One: After a closed-door meeting between the president and Democrat higher-ups, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer ran crying to the media, tattling that Trump said "he'd keep the government closed for a very long period of time, months or even years."  Reporters then flocked to Trump, doubtless hoping for shamefaced equivocation.

Nope:

Trump later confirmed in the Rose Garden, "Absolutely I said that," while clarifying he hopes the partial shutdown doesn't last more than a few more days. He said it could be opened "very quickly" if they come to an agreement on the wall.

Two:

"We can call a national emergency [to build a border wall] because of the security of our country," Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden, during a lengthy and impromptu press conference.

"I may do it," he said, before adding, "If we can do it through a negotiated process, we're giving it a shot."

The Washington Post exemplifies the tenor of the MSM reaction, shrieking about "a rambling hour long news conference" and "little empathy" from the president for the Transportation Security Administration.  Seriously, the WaPo assigned three whole reporters to sob to Americans over the grope-happy TSA:

Real-life consequences of the shutdown are already beginning to seep in.  In one example Friday, union leaders said hundreds of Transportation Safety Administration workers at major airports nationwide are off the job because they can't afford to get to work, although a TSA spokesman said the absences aren't enough to affect airport security operations.  Millions of Americans also face delayed tax refunds and cuts to food stamps if the standoff drags into February.

This is the best they can do to frame a "shutdown apocalypse" narrative: airport security operating as normal and the prospect of some people maybe perhaps possibly "facing" "delayed" tax refunds – which is to say the government will hold the people's money hostage, interest-free, for even longer, or else hold off on sending out Earned Income Tax Credit welfare giveaways.

Trump's "national emergency" comment looks like an offhand remark.  As an indicator of practical policy, it probably doesn't mean much.  But it speaks volumes about Trump's superior understanding of the country's political landscape, inextricably intertwined with its entertainment landscape.

Here are three things Trump understands about most Americans that the exploding-head liberal media don't:

1. They want the wall built.  Brian Kolfage's "build the wall" GoFundMe is pushing $20 million.

2. They love the spectacle and the drama of Trump's barbs and zingers.  "Civility" is something for thickly bespectacled pajama boys and NeverTrump thumb-suckers to obsess over.  The rest of the country is pulling the popcorn out of the microwave.

3. A partial shutdown simply does not bother most Americans.  It takes tremendous tone-deafness to fret to the heartland over how the USA will ever function without the TSA or the IRS.  For most people, a government at 75 percent capacity is a Christmas present.

Thomas Lifson made the point yesterday that an eternal shutdown will hurt Democrats much more than Republicans, as the hold on paychecks for federal workers, a major Dem constituency, becomes unbearable.  Lifson speculates, astutely, that Trump knows this.  With Schumer and Pelosi backed up against the wall, Trump can say any inflammatory thing he wants to.  Hysterical shriekers like the three stooges at the Washington Post will lavish him with free air time, and red America will lap it up and beg the president for more.

Republicans could have pulled similar results out of Obama's shutdown in 2013, wherein the Light-Bringer blocked World War II veterans from their own open-air memorial in order to preserve massive forced taxpayer subsidies for the dismemberment of human children.  But they didn't have the stones, and the media ran roughshod over them.

Trump's departure from the spineless, bland, pinkies-out Republican status quo is a delight to watch.  It's also a national emergency for once-complacent Democrats.

Drew Belsky is the American Thinker's deputy editor.  Contact him at drew@americanthinker.com.