OK, I now intend to get ahead of the president of the United States, because I pretty much know what he’s going to say when he speaks a little later to his fellow Americans.
He’s going to say we need to build The Wall along our southern border to stop what he says is a horde of terrorists seeking to enter the country illegally. He is going justify the $5.6 billion expense by saying that the alternative is “open borders,” which no sane American wants. Donald Trump is going to foment fear among Americans by declaring that we have to stop this phony menace and he is considering whether to declare a national emergency to do that very thing.
The Wall is a fantasy cooked up by a first-time political candidate in June 2015 when he rode down an escalator and declared his intention to run for the presidency. It drew cheers and hosannas from the faithful.
The Wall won’t do what Trump intends for it to do. It won’t stop illegal immigrants from seeking to enter the country. It won’t stave off any illicit drug traffic. It won’t deter bad guys from doing harm.
As others have noted, we have technology these days that we can deploy: drones, electronic surveillance equipment to name two weapons at our disposal. We can hire more Border Patrol officers and deploy them at entry points identified as most troublesome by federal, state and local authorities.
The threat of terror is overhyped in the extreme. The president is using phony numbers to illustrate what he calls a national crisis. He has told his administration to follow his lead. They are telling falsehoods. They are demagoguing the issue, frightening Americans.
The Wall is a phony remedy to a problem that exists, but not to the extent that Donald Trump keeps insisting that it does.
He will go on the air tonight to tell us our nation is in dire peril from the hordes of rapists, murderers, drug dealers, sex traffickers and international terrorists who, more than likely, are “radical Islamic extremists” packing bombs and assorted weapons of mass destruction.
All the while, part of the federal government remains shuttered. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are in danger of missing mortgage payments, child support payments or credit card payments because they are furloughed — without pay.
Why? Because the commander in chief wants to build a “big, beautiful wall” that won’t do a damn thing.