Donald Trump may have met his match in Nancy Pelosi

There is something irresistibly attractive, delicious even, about having Nancy Pelosi – a liberal Democrat and a woman – pitted against Donald Trump, the populist, misogynist egotist. As the new speaker of the House of Representatives, she acts as a formidable political force in her own right – with the House now controlled by her party – and a personalised riposte to Trumpism. As she stated so forthrightly in her inaugural address, she is determined to protect the rights and powers of the legislative branch of American government, “co-equal” with the president’s executive branch and the judiciary.

This week, she has already found herself embroiled in her first war of attrition with President Trump – over the partial shutdown of the federal government.

The president has already played a poor hand badly by admitting that it is his decision to veto bills and close down some of the functions of the state, for the sake of fulfilling his pledge to build an absurd wall on the Mexican border. It is fair, as the president says himself, to say that Mr Trump is merely attempting to deliver on another of his 2016 campaign promises; but it is also true that the nation as a whole weakened his mandate to do that in last year’s midterm elections, and, lest we forget, the Mexicans were supposed to be getting the bill in any case.

As Ms Pelosi argues, the American constitution is famed for its intricate system of checks and balances, and we see here an example of them being in action, albeit with rather more grouching than they often generate.

Mr Trump may, in other words, have met his match. Ms Pelosi, unlike Mr Trump, has been around DC for a long time. She was first elected when Ronald Reagan was president, and has served as speaker before. At 78 years of age she enjoys the benefits of experience, and she has witnessed firsthand a couple of previous federal shutdowns.

She is a skilful politician, she is resistant to Mr Trump’s bullying, and will treat his angry tweets with the contempt they so richly deserve. She is, to borrow a fashionable phrase, a grown-up in the room. To borrow an older one in British usage, she is a lady not for turning. She has stamina, too; she holds the record for longest House speech, having talked her way through an eight-hour marathon speech last year, in an attempt to persuade Republicans to allow a vote on immigration legislation.

Ms Pelosi plays a smart game. The Democrats in the House have passed legislation to reopen the government without funding the wall, an easy answer to a manufactured political problem – after all, America is still able to fund its central administration. Yet when the bill reaches the Senate, the Republicans there are sure to block it, on behalf of the president.

Thus the political pinch point in this latest budget crisis will be on Republican senators rather than Democrats in the House or the president himself. While many of them sympathise with Mr Trump’s objections – if not the means – and while many will be looking to their own political base, they will also be asked by constituents why their federal services are being starved of funds and why federal employees in the states they represent are having to borrow against their future salary payments. Few are loyal Trumpites, and it will be interesting to see how new senator, and former presidential candidate, Mitt Romney reacts. So far he has told Mr Trump to “up his game” – not the most supportive of quotes. Blaming the Democrats, or Mr Trump for that matter, is likely to get Republican senators nowhere.

Besides, the wall is the most impractical of solutions to the migration issue that could possibly be devised. It has the advantages of being grandiose – Mr Trump has said, improbably, that it will be “beautiful” – and a literal monument to the Trump administration. It might keep a few of the less enterprising would-be migrants out. But there is more than one way to enter the US, and, if the experience of walls from Berlin to Palestine is anything to go by, such barriers are simply there to be gone round, under and over. The number of illegal migrants into the US who simply fly in and overstay their visas far outstrips those trekking into New Mexico and Texas.

Luckily for all concerned, Mr Trump has a ready political escape route of his own. He can blame the Democrats for the failure of his wall. His base will accept and understand that, and those who sympathise with the president can vote for him, should he be around for re-election, in 2020.

The Democrats can point out that Mr Trump was going to make Mexico – not American taxpayers – pay for the wall. A massive bill being presented to US citizens was not, in point of fact, in his manifesto in 2016. The Democrats, then, should be very content to take responsibility for saving America from this colossal concrete folly. Then the national parks can reopen and the teachers can get paid. Ms Pelosi should, quietly, suggest as much. In the meantime, she should hold her nerve.