Christian Broadcasting Network analyst David Brody tweeted, in the midst of the record-setting and utterly pointless government shutdown, that “Pelosi is playing checkers. Trump is playing chess.” After the shutdown ended with nothing to show for it, YouTube star Bill Mitchell tweeted that "Trump’s intuitive mind is a super-computer. … He is a strategic savant. Instead of wasting energy on things like tact, his brain focuses on strategy.”

You have to be a savant of sycophancy to imagine that Trump actually had a strategy during a shutdown that did nothing to bring about a border wall but did real damage to his political standing. (He’s down to 37 percent approval and 57 percent disapproval in CNN’s poll of polls.) But that is the kind of person that Trump surrounds himself with. When the president appeared on Friday afternoon in the Rose Garden to announce a shutdown-ending “deal,” his senior staff and cabinet actually applauded. It’s as if Napoleon’s ministers had cheered a great victory after he returned from Russia. Sure, the Grande Armée was decimated, but the emperor has his enemies right where he wants them. N’est-ce pas?

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A more honest assessment came from, of all sources, the author of that literary masterwork “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!” “Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush,” Ann Coulter tweeted. “As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.” You have to be pretty twisted to imagine that a war hero who was shot down at age 20 was actually a “wimp,” but her assessment of the incumbent rings true.

Trump supporters have been worshiping the god that failed. He is not the uber-competent, alpha-male boss depicted on “The Apprentice.” He is, in truth, the weakest president since Jimmy Carter and the least competent since Warren Harding.

Trump underlined his impotence with his rage-filled tweets after Stone’s arrest. “If Roger Stone was indicted for lying to Congress, what about the lying done by Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Lisa Page & lover, Baker and soooo many others?” Trump demanded. “What about Hillary to FBI and her 33,000 deleted Emails? What about Lisa & Peter’s deleted texts & Wiener’s laptop? Much more!” Well, what about it? If there is a legitimate case to pursue, why isn’t Trump’s Justice Department pursuing it? His inability to bend the government to his will, even after two years in office, is a sign that (a) the rule of law still prevails and (b) he does not know what he is doing.

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The Trump mystique has been based on fear and faith — fear of immigrant hordes swarming the borders and faith that Trump “alone can fix it.” The failure of his shutdown dealt another mighty blow to both illusions. If there is a genuine border emergency, as Trump supporters wrongly imagine, then the president is doing nothing to address it. Indeed, the number of undocumented immigrants caught at the southern border increased in 2018 — even if it’s still 75 percent below the peak reached in 2000. Trump never really tried to get Mexico to pay for his wall. He did try to get Congress to ante up and failed miserably.

Trump’s desperate tweets — “This was in no way a concession,” he insisted after making a massive concession — cannot disguise the dismal reality. The shutdown was the third big defeat of his presidency and the first one that he cannot somehow rationalize away. The failure of the Senate to repeal Obamacare he blamed on the perfidy of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). The midterm elections, in which Republicans lost 40 House seats, he portrayed as a signal victory because of the pickup of two Senate seats. The shutdown, by contrast, is pure, unalloyed disaster — and there is no one Trump can blame but himself, however hard he may try.

The president has not adjusted to the brutal reality of dealing with a Democratic-controlled House. When Republicans were in control of both chambers, he could plausibly threaten lawmakers because of his cultlike hold on 80-plus percent of Republican voters. But his base is only 35 percent or so of the entire electorate, and Democrats are not intimidated by him. His aura of invincibility has been cracked — and, with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III scheduled to report, the worst is yet to come. Two painful, punishing years loom.