Later today, the White House will unveil two theoretically important documents. One is its budget for 2018, and the other is its long-awaited infrastructure plan. While in theory these are significant announcements, in practice they’re virtually meaningless. Presidential budgets, of course, are generally regarded as “wish-lists” that are subsequently ignored. And when it comes to the infrastructure plan, everyone already knows what Donald Trump is asking for and has decided that there’s no way in hell they’re giving it to him.

While some lawmakers will feel the need to compliment the plan in public, behind the scenes it is near universally loathed. Axios reports that, after passing a deficit-busting spending bill last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan “has zero interest in juicing the debt even more with a massive infrastructure package.” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, it goes without saying, is on his fainting couch at the prospect of spending more money. “I think [the budget deal] does hurt the chances for an infrastructure package to get done,” he told Axios, adding, “unless you use the money we’re just now spending . . . I think there’s not going to be the appetite to continue to add additional monies without real offsets.”

On the Democratic side, there’s little appetite for a $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion plan that would get no more than 20 percent of its funding from the federal government, leaving the projects (and profits) in the hands of, among others, Trump’s old buddies. Environmental groups are horrified at the notion that the administration wants to fast-track the building approvals, gutting environmental protections, and putting public health at risk in the process—the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Shelley Poticha called the proposal “a disaster.” Those people, of course, could simply be dismissed as jealous, obstructionist haters and losers, but then, it’s all sort of a moot point since even senior administration officials have admitted that “they see no path to passage for anything resembling their infrastructure plan.”

Luckily for the White House, massive legislative failure is no longer seen as an obstacle in the grand scheme of things. In fact, if it gives you an opening to bash Democrats, it might even be an opportunity. As Mike Allen reports,Trump’s real 2018 plan “is going to be looking for opportunities to stir up the base, more than focusing on any particular legislation or issue,” in order to get Republicans excited about the midterms. The president reportedly believes that “unexpected cultural flashpoints—like the N.F.L. and kneeling” will have more of an impact than things like actually rebuilding all that crumbling infrastructure he yelled about on the campaign trail. It’s easier to continue yelling, after all, than to solve the problem. And what stirs up the base better than yelling at athletes on Twitter?

Whether this will prove to be a successful strategy in states where Republicans face tough races remains to be seen. At least some of Trump’s G.O.P. allies are afraid it might backfire, and are tugging at their shirt collars over the president’s off-the-cuff comments on Rob Porter, the White House staffer who resigned in the wake of domestic abuse allegations. “For . . . anybody . . . who cares about keeping control of Congress, if you find yourself talking about anything but the middle-class tax cut, shut up and stop talking,” Corry Bliss, who runs the Congressional Leadership Fund, told The New York Times, adding, “Any time spent . . . talking about anything but how we’re helping the middle class is a waste of time and does nothing to help us win in 2018.”