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Asian Americans may be more behind this federal government shutdown than you think.

If you’re one of the 1.8 million who were covered by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, you’re a big reason we’re in this mess.

Yes, it is ironic that the man in Santa’s sleigh who wants to bring “Merry Christmas” back is a big Scrooge making the holiday a stressor for 800,000 federal workers around the country. A government shutdown? Is this a gift for those anti-government conservatives to imagine a day where their wish is granted? They just want small government. Well, how about none at all! Then no taxes, no nothing, no services. Everyone on their own in a free market of chaos. A big “C” conservative’s wet dream.

But this shutdown’s not that deep.

Donald Trump finally gets it.

He understands that everything he says as president is news. So for the childlike president, Twitter is his instant fix, his baby rattler and tantrum inducer. He wants attention. Now. He wants his favorite one-syllable toy. “Wall.” Donald wants wall. Wall. Wall. Wa. Wa. Wa. And there he goes, rattling and rolling in in the Oval Office, the new White House nursery. Until someone gives in and lets him have his toy.

This is the new politics in America.

The adults in the room are leaving. The Mattis departure, a double gut punch last week after Trump wondered what we were doing in Syria, was hastened over the weekend. All of them out, sooner than later. And now the new secretary of defense will be acting hard to be Trump’s latest toy, until he displeases.

It’s all making a mockery of our democracy.

For the third time this year, we have a shutdown of government, a failure of leadership, and all we’re talking about is how bad Trump is as president.

One of the most vocal Asian American activists of our day, George Takei, has joined in the voices calling for Trump to resign.

Last week, I suggested impeachment was too good for someone like Trump. That a kingly thing to do would be abdication.

But Trump’s not leaving. He’s going to hang in. Because he’s dazzled by his dictator rattler.

He’s into the manipulation and he thinks he’s winning. And he listens to his radio nannies, specifically Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. A minority of the American public use them as their political Cliff Notes, just like Trump.

And Trump thinks by controlling the racist, xenophobic right, a/k/a/ his “base,” that he can leverage that into anything he wants among the rest of us. Wall? Why not. Wa. Wa. Wall.

Politicians with no stomach for this game have shut up and played dumb for the last two years. Paul Ryan was chief among them. Good riddance. They’ve only normalized crazy.

Only Tennessee’s Bob Corker, emboldened by his own retirement, has been strong enough lately to speak out against Trump. Leaving is a great enabler. But it’s too little, too late.

There’s no compromising at least until January, when the Democrats take over the house and begin oversight in earnest. And then hopefully, the Mueller probe wraps up and puts the whole boar’s head banquet of misdeeds on the table.

This is the path of The Donald’s making because this argument over a piddly $5 billion item like a wall would have been moot had Trump taken the deal a year ago. That’s when the Democrats offered up a bill that would have included funding for the wall in exchange for making DACA a reality. Money for wall, for a pathway for citizenship for some immigrants.

That’s where many of you good folks come in. Apparently, Trump hates DACA recipients more than he hates the wall. He hates DACA recipients more than he hates parallel slats with sharp medieval points. And Republicans just went along with Trump. The compromise died.

And now the Democrats are about to come into power, and there’s no incentive for anyone to compromise until they take over.

So as a veteran parent, there’s only one thing to prescribe for the moment: let Trump whine.

Wa-wa-wa. Wall.

And let the rest of us have our own Trump shutdown.

A moratorium for the next few days where there is no Trump. He doesn’t exist. Our Christmas Fantasy. Instead of cable news, put it on the Hallmark Channel. There is no Trump. And it’s a wonderful life.

Merry Christmas.

We’ll start throwing punches again on Boxing Day.