Trigger warning: This comment contains a version of 4-D chess that some anons may find upsetting. A ball pit has been prepared in the other room for you, and crisis counsellors are standing by
Here's my take on it, and I admit I could be wrong in any or all of my major premises.
Trump didn't get where he is by being rash or stupid, or by forgetting whose side he's on. This is a man who has avenged every insult he's ever gotten. I find it impossible to believe he's half as weak-willed and soft as he's making out.
He is also more aware of the sentiment in this country – in his own base – than most politicians. He rose on the white middle and working class, after all, and he knows we hate spics. Hell, he's seen what happened to New York in his own lifetime. His ex-wife said he used to keep a book of Hitler's speeches by the bed and read them over and over. Whatever Trump is, he's not an open-borders fag.
So, why the belly? Why act soft? I see two possibilities:
1) Trump thinks he has a weak hand. The mid-term losses fucked him up, and now he mistakenly believes his position is weak. This adequately explains all the compromise offers and attempts to walk back from the limb he's sitting on. It does NOT explain why he got into this mess AFTER the mid-terms, which is when he put his back up to fight. It is also not consistent with what we know about his character. If there's one consistent theme in the man's life, it's that he fucking hates to lose. I can't believe he's defeated himself and genuinely believes Nancy Pelosi, of all people, has gotten the better of him in public.
Okay, so that leaves unanswered questions. There's also:
2) Optics. He knows his base won't walk to the AOC or Clinton wings of the Democrats, so he can leave that plate to spin on its own for a bit. He also knows enough NPC-Americans voted Dem to fuck up the mid-terms. So he needs them. Specifically, he needs the attempt to pin this shutdown on him to fail, and to do that he needs to be the voice of reason multiple times until it sinks in that the Democrats he's up against don't give a shit about the country. By offering compromises that will re-open the government right now, but which leave border security as an eventual priority, he's essentially inviting the Democrats to announce they just want unlimited shitskin immigration, which half of them are saying right now anyway.
Take this for what it's worth. If scenario 2 is correct, I'm not even sure it will work. He's an enemy of the world's biggest propaganda machine, after all. But I don't accept treason as an explanation, and I honestly can't accept that he thinks he's beaten.
InB4 MAGApede shilling.