(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) Demonstrators rally in support of DACA outside the Capitol on January 21, 2018, on the second day of the federal government shutdown. A s I write this column, the federal government is shut down, which may or may not still be the case by the time you read it. If we set aside the trivial question of which party will get political advantage from this ugly confrontation, there are actually some important issues that will remain even after the dispute is resolved and government services are restored. This budget fight has exacerbated the divisions between the two parties on immigration, one of the most profound and emotionally fraught issues we have to deal with. And if the agreement that ends the crisis doesn't resolve some of the core questions, those divisions may only get worse. That's true even though there's an obvious resolution to the crisis. Democrats would grit their teeth and swallow a large amount of funding for Donald Trump's asinine border wall,...

(Rex Features via AP Images) A fter the 2017 we had, it seems completely appropriate that as 2018 begins, we're arguing about whether Donald Trump is an idiot or a genius. Or perhaps "arguing" is the wrong word. It isn't like there's some kind of grand debate afoot, in which the two parties articulate opposing views, marshall evidence, and work to convince the public that their side is correct. You'd have a hard time finding a Republican not in Trump's direct employ who would say with a straight face that the president is an intelligent man, and with the release of Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House , in which Wolff describes how the White House staff has to work to accommodate the fact that their boss is a simpleton, the president's insecurities have come bursting out yet again. Nobody's going to call him stupid without him hitting back! And so he has, announcing on Twitter that "Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental...