Trump’s Wall (2018- ) is a wall being built between the US and Mexico by US President Donald Trump.
- Mexican border: 3,145 km, half of it wallable.
- Existing barrier: 1,050 km, mostly fencing.
- Trump’s wall: 58 km so far.
The fence was started in the 1970s in San Diego and El Paso with left-over steel from the Vietnam War. It got a big boost in 2006 with the Secure Fence Act, which Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many other Democrats voted for.
Then in 2015 Donald Trump ran for president:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. …
“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”
In January 2018 Trump, now the president, asked Congress, not Mexico, for $18 billion to build the wall. He got $1.6 billion, enough for 160 km.
In November, a CBS News poll showed that 79% of Republican voters were for the Wall, 84% of Democrats were against. Overall, 59% of Americans opposed the Wall.
In December, Trump asked for $5.7 billion, enough for another 375 km, giving him over 500 km altogether. Democrats agreed to money for border security, but not for the Wall.
On December 19th, Ann Coulter, right-wing harpy, held his feet to the fire:
“It’s not as if a majority of his voters weren’t clear-eyed about what kind of man he is. If anything, Trump’s vulgar narcissism made his vow to build a wall more believable. Respectable politicians had made similar promises over the years – and they always betrayed the voters. Maybe it took a sociopath to ignore elite opinion and keep his word.
“On the basis of his self-interest alone, he must know that if he doesn’t build the wall, he has zero chance of being re-elected and a 100 percent chance of being utterly humiliated.”
Government shutdown: So now Trump, author of “The Art of the Deal” (1987), has shut down part of the US government demanding Democrats vote for the $5.7 billion so he can keep his campaign promise.
Monument of hate: The Wall is an easy thing for Trump to get rednecks whipped up about and get their votes, but in practice it will do little to stop:
- Drugs: They come mainly through ports of entry (border checkpoints) that the Wall will not close.
- Violent crime: Immigrants, even those without papers, have a far lower rate of violent crime than US-born Americans.
- Terrorists: Few if any come by way of the Mexican border.
- Asylum seekers: Mainly come through ports of entry.
- Illegal immigration: Most immigrants who are in the US illegally did not sneak across the border – they overstayed their visas.
Illegal immigration at the Mexican border peaked in 2000. It is now at early 1970s levels.
– Abagond, 2019.
See also:
- Donald Trump
- Israel’s Wall
- Statue of Liberty
- US immigration
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[…] https://abagond.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/trumps-wall/ […]
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I’ll never forget Ann Coulter’s piece about soccer: http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html
“Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation’s moral decay.”
“Everyone just runs up and down the field and, every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in.”
“The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport.”
“If more ‘Americans’ are watching soccer today, it’s only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer.”
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You know that México may soon become like Venezuela, don’t you? When it happens, it will be like “The Walking Dead”: no wall will resist
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A wall is a tool, not a solution. Trump’s caught marketing it as a solution which allows his opponents to debate it’s effectiveness as a solution. Homeland knows that a wall/fence/coral/barrier even the river have a funneling effect which helps them better manage their resources to have the greatest impact while accepting less than 100% effectiveness. Simply one tool in a $47 billion toolbox. $5.7 billion isn’t all that much in the grand scheme of things. I mean we spent $4.7 billion subsidizing soy bean farmers because of 45’s trade war…. Between that and “Space Force” he could have paid for the thing. It’s not like any of it is our money anyway… it’s all just borrowed money adding to the national debt (read that with sarcasm).
It’s not about that though is it? It’s about drawing a line around a would-be dictator and saying, “No more!” He was elected by a minority of our citizens and he’s being allowed to play king by his own party (elected by minorities of their citizens do to gerrymandering, voter suppression and low turnout) because they know they’re losing their ability to manipulate the mechanisms by which they obtain power. They’re running scared and they cannot afford to “look weak” or alienate Trump’s base because they need 100% of that base to turn out and vote in order to have any chance of survival. So, they refuse to publicly humiliate the “President” and Democrats are seizing on that opportunity to collapse the Republican house of cards.
Unfortunately, all of that comes at the expense of Federal workers who I assume are reluctant to leave for other jobs because theirs are some of the last remaining jobs with benefits. Living paycheck to paycheck and caught in the middle. Trump doesn’t care and the Democratic leadership just looks foolish trying to call attention to their hardships because the Democratic representatives are ultimately the only ones beholden to the people… which is why Trump knows they’ll eventually cave unless they can find some real leverage that hurts Trump personally.
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This was a short, concise, and fact-filled post. Thank you.
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The country is being held hostage and people are going to be unable to buy food because their food stamps will be cut off people who live paycheck to paycheck won’t be able to pay bills or rent and forced evictions. This president doesn’t care about the American people.
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There seems, to me, to be an element of theatricality to this affair. Is the shutdown a means to and end or is it and end in itself?
There is hardly any basis for “negotiation” because the Democrats say they will not allocate $5B for the wall and Trump says he’ll not accept anything less. How can a “deal” result from these positions? That’s an impasse. Someone will lose and look stupid for either having shut down the government and failing to produce the desired result or going back on a firm “No” to funding the wall.
Furthermore, when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress the Senate rejected a deal that would have given $25B for the wall in exchange for DACA protections. Having passed on that, they’ve now shut down government for $5B? That’s the “Art of the Deal”? By the way, Trump foolishly had himself recorded on TV owning the shutdown so he can’t even blame the Dems. It’s so inept it’s comical.
Finally, the spending bill that Pelosi pushed through the House was already passed by the Senate before Trump obeyed Coulter and went back on his agreement to fund the government. The Senate votes likely still exist to pass it but Mitch is surrendering the purview of the legislative branch to the President and is not allowing a new vote unless Trump signals approval in advance.
Therefore a shutdown has been engineered but it does not seem at all strategic. Since Trump has owned the shutdown and both the shutdown and the wall are unpopular, it only hurts him. It’s a bit like going on a hunger strike; it won’t attract attention to your cause if everyone is too happy to see that you’re dying to ask what’s wrong. Why would the Dems give Trump a way out of the shutdown corner into which he’s painted himself?
So it seems as if the shutdown itself was desired and the question of whether the shutdown would be a useful tool to achieve policy objectives was secondary, if that was even considered at all. Why? The answer probably lies somewhere on the continuum between ineptitude and deviousness. Trump’s “high-IQ” tips the needle heavily towards ineptitude but he’s also stupid enough, and prone enough to flattery, to be manipulated effectively by much smarter people. There could be no better president of the twilight.
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*Many accidental “and”s in the first paragraph, should be “an”.
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Trump has a lot of tells, by the way.
I’m sure many people have noticed them.
Whenever he says, “believe me” he is positively, absolutely lying.
Whenever he says, “a lot of people don’t know that”, HE didn’t know.
He’s also incredibly insecure and takes both flattery and insults to heart. He is liberal with both “tremendous” praise and insults because his theory of the mind is that everyone has his kind of mind. He expects both flattery and vilification to have the same effect on others as they have on him and he therefore employs them according to his aims.
Of course, Putin, Erdogan and Xi Jinping know this and more. Do you remember how Trump was feted when he visited China? He was the first foreign leader to dine at the Forbidden City. Trump hasn’t forgotten. I’m sure he was thinking about his visit when he said that the Chinese are more honorable than “crying Chuck and Nancy”.
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This wall is useless, but I think the democrats took the bait and fell into Trump’s trap.
Come on, 6 billion dollars? This looks like Dr Evil from “Austin Powers” blackmailing the UNO and asking one million dollars.
The corruption schemes of PT cost Brazil at least one trillion dollars. I’m almost sure the USA is much richer than Brazil.
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I suggest everyone invest in industrial tuñeling equipment.😁😀😎
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Ann Coulter the gargoyle.
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I thought this article about the wall-related government shutdown was interesting. It discusses how Indian reservations are disproportionately affected by shutdowns of the federal government:
Also, I said in a comment a couple months ago that as far as I could tell, Markwayne Mullin, a current U.S. congressman of Native heritage, appears to have done nothing to benefit the average Indian (https://abagond.wordpress.com/2018/11/10/welcome-to-native-american-heritage-month-2018/#comment-409122)
I have to stand corrected, because according to this NYT article, he is trying (unsuccessfully so far) to do something about the immense impact that federal shutdowns have on Indian Country. Even if that’s all he’s ever done, it does show that he’s trying to some degree to further the interests and protect the welfare of Native peoples.
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Well, shoot, I linked to the wrong comment:
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Here’s an interesting quirk: a short clip from MSNBC about a 1950s episode of an old show that seems uncannily current.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ7Dm8rN-Wo)
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BTW, google is trash now.
I used to find it convenient to locate past abagond articles through google. Entering “abagond” plus the title of the article almost always gave me the specific article as the first link. Not any more, I get a bunch of generic abagond results now.
Google:
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=bGw5XO25GM7M_AaMnZ-QAg&q=abagond+trump+wall&btnK=Google+Search&oq=abagond+trump+wall&gs_l=psy-ab.3…349.2511..2703…0.0..0.93.1314.18……0….1..gws-wiz…..0..0j0i131j0i10j0i30j0i22i30j33i160.JvFLwGH9lPQ
Duck.com gives me this page as the first link, as expected:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=abagond+trump+wall&t=h_&ia=web
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Wow, that YouTube about Trump from the 50s t.v. show is a total freak-out. Now I believe in the Twilight Zone AND the Mandela effect.
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@dorisjean
It’s quite uncanny that he’s named Trump. He sounds just like President Trump too (“Only I can do it”) but I suppose that’s just because they’re both conmen.
Another fun fact I read months ago was about an author, Ingersoll Lockwood, who wrote a couple books in the 1890s. One was titled “Baron Trump’s Marvelous Underground Journey” and the other was “1900: or, The Last President”. They were archived by the Library of Congress and can be read at the links below:
https://archive.org/details/barontrumpsmarve00lock/page/n7
https://archive.org/details/1900orlastpresid00lock/page/n7
A few points people find interesting in the “Baron Trump” book is that he starts his journey in Russia, lol, and he is guided by a “master of masters” named Don Fum. In the book he’s an actual Baron by title, Baron isn’t his first name (he’s named Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Von Troomp but he’s called Little Baron Trump).
This is a quote from Newsweek about the coincidences in the other book, “1900: or, The Last President”.
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I don’t even think the wall funding fight is a matter of expense.
The fact is that Trump said that he’d build the wall and Mexico would pay for it.
He’s also said Mexico has already paid for the wall through the trade deal that has not yet become law.
He’s also said the wall has already been built and he’s already handed out contracts.
Yet he’s shut down the government because he wants the Democrat-controlled House to fund the wall from the government’s purse.
Should his political opponents who just took over the House (previously Republicans had House and Senate majorities and the presidency) then say: “Yes, the wall has already been built and Mexico has paid for it but here is the 5B dollars you threatened me for”?
Anyway, it’s always funny to me how the world’s foremost squatters are always most concerned about the “illegal” presence of other people on the land. I remember an interview in which Coulter was confronted about this and she claimed they were “settlers” not immigrants, lol.
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Imagine if they turned off ssi, welfare and stamps.
The wall will be broken down from the american side from fleeing civilians.
https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10217951369484408&id=1489932727
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Spare a thought for those who’ll finally get paid because Trump signaled today that he’ll end the shutdown without his wall funding. Funny how he managed to paint himself into a corner in an Oval Office. The wall is unpopular and he wasn’t going to be able to hold people’s paychecks hostage forever. While he was hoping for the other side to cave first, Pelosi was ready to swing her co-equal branch (not a rolled up magazine but it’d have to do).
BTW, I don’t think it’s a surprise that he caved on the day Roger Stone was also indicted. News of the shutdown ending will take some attention away from that aspect of the Mueller probe otherwise it would completely dominate the prime time news broadcasts. Like all con artists, he cares about image and knows how to engineer distractions.
Some people have a theory that Trump didn’t believe he’d win the Presidency and just ran to boost his sagging fame (IIRC, he was unhappy with the deal NBC was offering for another season of The Apprentice). He’s a snake oil salesman and didn’t expect to have to deliver on any of his promises. After losing, he was ready to claim that the election being “rigged” and feign outrage. The reality, wherein he’s president, might not work out so well for him and the GOP.
He’s causing many people anxiety but I’m kind of glad he’s a cluster and I was never truly worried about his Presidency (he’s too politically inexperienced and too arrogant to know it). You can disagree with Obama’s policies, but he was not incompetent or stupid nor did he work to undermine American power. Yet he was hated by many because of his color. Now we get a really incompetent President in the color many people like!
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So the government is open again for three weeks? So after three weeks will he shut it down again? He’s playing with the lives of the American people. He’s very evil and acting like a petulant child.
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Mitch McConnell is another fiend in this horror.
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@Origin: That was a great read very succinct.
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@Mary
I don’t think he’s going to shut it down again after three weeks. IMO, that was just put out there to save some face; to make it seem as he didn’t just experience a complete, total, defeat. If he had simply ignored Coulter and accepted the bipartisan bills from December we would have been where we are now a month ago and he’d have less egg on his face.
He goes with his ample gut a lot of the time so who knows, but this shutdown turned into a trap for him and he was begging for a face-saving way out by the end. He ended up having to capitulate with nothing but a further reduced approval rating to show for it so it would be crazy to put himself in that situation again in three weeks.
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Yeah, Mitch definitely surrendered his power and made Trump run rampant.
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Trump is influenced by that gargon Ann Coulter and all those other beast on Fox News. He hangs on her every word and she lets him know when she’s displeased with him if he doesn’t do enough deplorable things.
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@ Origin
“Spare a thought for those who’ll finally get paid”
Yes indeed, and let’s hope the contractors and their crews get some recompense as well.
One silver lining from this fiasco is how it’s become evident that most federal employees aren’t highly-paid lazy stiffs but working people living paycheck to paycheck.
Seeing them going to food banks and pawning their wedding rings — some while still having to report to work — has been a wake-up call for many who belittled civil servants.
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@Solitaire
The issues arising at airports due to air traffic controllers and TSA agents, who hadn’t been paid for a month, calling in sick because they can’t afford to travel to work or need to moonlight to make ends meet was probably another factor that helped bring this to an end.
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