The Grand Illusion
When Trump learned that the House of Representatives and the Democratic minority in the Senate were willing to give him more border security funding, but no wall or solid steel fence, he walked out of the meeting, saying “Bye-bye.”
He talks about the need to protect Americans, but every day that the partial government shut-down continues, far more Americans are harmed than any possible protection than could be obtained from a concrete wall or solid steel fence. The National Parks are taking a beating that will require millions to repair and clean up. Tax refunds are threatened. Federal contract workers will never get paid for the last three weeks.
No matter what Trump says, none of that really matters to him. He wants that wall because he campaigned on it, and he wants his way. He wants to proof he’s boss. And since he can’t say “You’re fired,” to Congress, this is the next best thing for him.
It doesn’t matter in the slightest to him that there are better and more effective ways to deal with the flow of refugees. It doesn’t matter how many American citizens suffer. It doesn’t matter than the wall would be a five billion dollar fiasco that would simply channel would-be illegal immigrants into other ways to get into the U.S. It doesn’t matter that we’re getting more illegal immigrants by far by other ways than across the Mexican border.
Now…the Democrats could turn up the pressure on this issue by saying that, while a wall won’t work and sends the wrong message, there is a need for more border security and that they’d support more funding – with the proviso that none of it goes to a wall.
Or Trump could easily “win” by saying, “Okay, you’re
right. The wall won’t work the way I
thought, but that means we need to spend more on other ways to stop illegal
immigration. Give me five billion, with solid language that says it can’t be
spent on a wall or a solid steel fence.”
That way, he’d put the Democrats in the corner. But he’s too much of a four-year-old in temper tantrum outlook to do that. And so, Americans and would-be migrants will all continue to suffer, and if Congress does cave and he gets wall funding, they’ll have suffered, and all the money spent on the wall will be essentially wasted.
So much for the great deal-maker and temper tantrums in politics.
I recall how it was said that one of the reasons George W. Bush, er, “won” the election was because people thought he’d be a nice guy to have a beer with.
With Trump, even that isn’t true. He’s the creepy blowhard at the end of the bar that everyone avoids because he’s stupid & loud and always repeats himself.
Who knew that the “Art of the Deal” was really only being intransigent to the point of pig-headedness?
It’s hard to see the Democrats caving: They have to be concerned that if they do, Trump will pull the same thing the next time he wants something. But yeah, “Art of the Deal” indeed.
Build a wall (or some other equivalent word that saves face for the Democrats if that helps, not that they deserve their faces or any other part of them being saved), do whatever else it takes to prove that sufficient resources, yes, occasional force, and ultimately determination, CAN stop mass migrations. We need immigrants alright, but we also need to know who comes here, and do NOT need as citizens people that are mostly not qualified to quickly reach the middle class and full productive self-sufficiency (seasonal agricultural and construction workers don’t meet that test, unless you want the price of food and construction to skyrocket to raise the wages of laborers, which would just drive inflation, and still not really make them better off…this when there are warnings that automation may within a very few decades obsolete 40% of existing jobs), and are unprepared to assimilate (i.e. good English). Nor do we need people that expect us to change to accommodate them (we have too many socialists of our own that it would be a vast improvement if we could persuade to leave as some promised to do if Trump was elected…but AFAIK, none did). And we certainly do not need anything like the millions that would come here if we just let everyone in.
We may think that we do not not need others but this is as society has evolved.
“White” people consist 850,000,000+ or 11.5% of the total world population (world population of 7.5 billion). (not counting partial European descent). Increasingly fewer with time. US “white” population was a maximum of 89.8 % of the population in 1940 and was 75.1 % of the population in 2000.
The only way you can get rid of democracy is by pushing your BIG BUTTON, now, while it is within reach! Then you can return to your cave; relax, watch the shadows on the wall, and await the newly coming world colored according to your concept of reality.
My point has NOTHING to do with race (which is at any rate a non-scientific 19th century notion, about as idiotic as phrenology), nor even something more objectively definable like ethnicity or genetics; I’m quite satisfied that one could raise an adopted newborn from some isolated tribe in modern society and have them function quite adequately as a member of the modern society, assuming no severe prenatal malnutrition.
It has something to do with whether someone is prepared to quickly assimilate and be self-supporting, or not. And it DOES have to do with what I suppose some might call a _cultural_ supremacist view – that unless you really want to live a low-tech, pastoral life, then western capitalism is the only game in town, except for totalitarianism and central planning, which is an abomination. And that “multiculturalism” is just the camel’s nose for balkanization as a way to break things preliminary to a final hateful objective of socialist globalism, so “assimilate” or “melting pot” should NOT be dirty words. Genetic diversity is an advantage, but _cultural_ diversity is, more than not, a liability if carried to extremes.
The left is always looking for unlimited power, and uncontrolled (or ineffectively controlled) immigration is just one of their many approaches to that objective.
Unfortunately, for all their rhetoric to the contrary, currently the right is also seeking unlimited power, if through the unchecked power of totally unregulated capitalism. Unchecked power, either of the left OR the right, is the enemy of personal rights and equality.