With each passing day, it seems less likely that Donald Trump will negotiate a speedy resolution to the ongoing government shutdown. Ordinarily, in the case of a political standoff, one side will concede after the consequences exceed their pain threshold, or once both sides grow tired of posturing and agree to compromise. Trump, however, appears to be lacking in any of the traits that might bring him to the negotiating table. He is, for one, largely apathetic to the 800,000 or so federal workers who are not getting paychecks (“most of the people not getting paid are Democrats,” he has said). He is arrogant enough to believe that the American people largely back his position, despite polling showing the exact opposite (58 percent of Americans told the Pew Foundation that they oppose the wall, and would also oppose a deal that included wall funding). And he lacks the political sophistication to understand what is motivating Democrats in Congress to hold firm.

The latest evidence comes via The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni, whose sources inside the White House portray the president as a man without any sort of plan for ending the shutdown, now in its 27th day. “We are getting crushed!” Trump recently told acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, according to the Times. “Why can’t we get a deal?”

A large part of the reason, of course, is that Democrats in Congress are almost perfectly united behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who have been holding the party line against any funding for a physical border wall. White House aides tell the Times that Trump “believes he is still playing a strong hand,” but it’s not clear what leverage he really has. Trump famously claimed credit for the shutdown during a televised meeting of his negotiations with Pelosi and Schumer. (“I’m not going to blame you for it,” he said at the time.) Current polling suggests that voters took it to heart: more than half of Americans say they blame Trump for the shutdown, while only a third blame the Democrats.

The president seems to believe the solution to this problem is personal, not political. After receiving backlash in the press following a (perhaps pre-planned) temper tantrum last week, when he stormed out of a meeting with Pelosi and Schumer with a “Bye-bye!” In the days since, Trump has tried to appear more reserved:

The president remained silent on Twitter for much of Wednesday, and Democrats who met with Mr. Trump said they found him to be in a congenial mood. “It was productive and constructive,” said Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, one of seven Democrats who attended the meeting.