According to Sam Nunberg, an early Trump adviser, as quoted by the NYT, "The Wall" was only a mnemonic device - something intended to remind Trump to keep on message about immigration because he didn't like to read a script. It was never a real proposal and there was never an intention to literally build a wall - it was the equivalent of a campaign slogan.
Some of this can be seen in the transcript of the conversation Trump had with the President of Mexico shortly after the inauguration, in which Trump practically begged him to just say that Mexico would pay for the Wall because otherwise, it would make him look bad.
We can also see it now in the way Trump is trying to backpedal - that "big, beautiful 30-foot concrete wall" he talked about is now morphing into "maybe a steel barrier or a fence". And make no mistake, Mexico is not going to pay a peso for any of it - we are. Trump's claims that we'll get it back in the trade deficit, or that it will somehow pay for itself are nonsense. That's not how trade deficits work. He also doesn't understand how tariffs work. For someone with a Bachelor's degree in economics, he has an incredible ignorance about economic fundamentals.
So now roughly 25% of the federal government has gone dark for two weeks and about 800,000 federal workers are either furloughed or forced to work without pay - with no idea when they will receive their next paycheck - because Trump has backed himself into a corner over a campaign slogan and can't find a way out. And it's not only the employees - it affects the small business they supported on a daily basis near their workplaces, so the number of affected Americans is probably well north of a million. All of that not due to a campaign promise, but due to a SLOGAN intended to keep candidate Trump on message, because he doesn't like to read a script.
And all that stuff he says about work on the Wall already beginning? It's nonsense, another Trump lie. There's not been a single additional mile of border fencing added since Trump became President.
It's just another typical Trump con job - the Trump WallNuts bought it, just like the students of Trump University bought into that con. The difference is that we're all paying the price for it now. |
