Proving again he’s not a typical politician, President Trump cut through the Kabuki-theater political atmosphere and bluntly stated that the Republicans were “wasting their time” negotiating border security with Democrats, who simply “are not going to give money” to build the wall.
The president also, alluding to politicians labeling any prospective border structure a “barrier” or “fence,” tweeted “Lets [sic] just call them WALLS from now on and stop playing political games! A WALL is a WALL!”
As USA Today reports, “President Donald Trump expressed skepticism Thursday that a congressional committee will agree to his demands for a border wall, raising the specters of another government shutdown or an ‘emergency declaration’ sure to be challenged in court.”
“Tweeting that ‘Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee are wasting their time,’ Trump said that ‘Democrats, despite all of the evidence, proof and Caravans coming, are not going to give money to build the DESPERATELY needed WALL,’” the paper continued.
The president’s remarks came “after the first meeting of a bipartisan committee of 17 lawmakers on a new border security plan, the key feature of last week’s agreement to reopen the government until Feb. 15 following a record-setting shutdown that lasted 35 days,” USA Today also tells us.
Unfortunately, such meetings are often largely Kabuki theater, events staged for show in which politicians just go through the motions. Democrats simply have no intention of funding a border wall, especially while Trump is president. This is despite the fact that many contemporary Democrats had once inveighed against illegal migration. Just consider ex-senator Harry Reid’s 1993 remarks in the video below.
Then there’s this selection of Democrats, courtesy of the Daily Caller:
Some may say this refusal to tend to national security borders on insanity. The recent caravans heading toward our nation may garner great media attention, but they’re almost a mere distraction. After all, last year alone nearly 400,000 illegals were apprehended trying to cross the border, and low-end estimates hold that 1,000 a day successfully invade, according to the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform.
Note that these people are by definition unknown quantities, carrying unknown motives, weapons, and diseases. In fact, we know that criminals and terrorists have come across in the past, and when hundreds of thousands enter every year, it’s a statistical certainty that such miscreants are still flowing into our midst. Now given that securing borders is a basic state function, is this not governmental malpractice or, even, criminal negligence?
(This also brings us to the typical leftist tactic of dismissing the border-jumper problem by stating that most illegals are visa-overstay cases. The latter have presumably been vetted and thus are known quantities — no comparison.)
Yet in steadfast refusal to secure the border, there’s method to the Democrats’ madness. The long game is that they actually want not just high-level immigration but also illegal migration. Why? First, illegals are counted in the census, which determines how many congressional seats each state will have.
Now note that in “2000, half of all non-citizens lived in just three states and almost 70 percent live[d] in just six states,” wrote the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). “States with a large non-citizen population will gain [seats] at the expense of states comprised mostly of citizens.” But here’s the kicker:
Illegals are generally concentrated in heavily Democrat areas.
As to the impact, the CIS reports that “the more than 18 million non-citizens in the 2000 Census were equal to nearly 29 congressional seats.” With the problem only having gotten worse, is it conceivable that most — or even all — of the Democrats’ current 37 seat House majority could be attributable to this phenomenon?
Second, the Democrats know that the more illegals we have, and the longer they remain on U.S. shores, the greater the pressure to grant amnesty; a certain percentage will assuredly receive it, in fact. Now note that approximately 85 to 90 percent of the illegal-alien demographic votes Democrat upon naturalization. Ergo, greater illegal migration=greater leftist power.
The shorter-term goal, however, is to deny the president the political victory of fulfilling his central campaign promise: building the wall. This would be devastating, much as when President George H.W. Bush, under pressure from Democrats to strike a budget deal, went back on his 1988 campaign pledge “Read my lips: no new taxes.”
The pledge was so effective that it helped Bush win that presidential election. Yet it was so memorable, and became so associated with him, that going back on it might have been the last nail his 1992 reelection effort’s coffin.
Likewise, Trump is the wall — the wall is Trump. The Democrats know that the one thing that could shatter this Teflon president’s bond with much of his stick-by-him base is not delivering on his signature campaign promise. In fact, a new poll bears this out, finding that “of 2,700 Trump voters, nearly half would abandon him if ‘he fails to secure border security funds,’” reports the Washington Examiner.
The president has gotten the message, too, perhaps. As USA Today also reports, “After weeks of downplaying the stark image of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — and saying it could be a less obtrusive ‘barrier’ like a ‘steel slat fence’ — Trump said Thursday he is returning to his original formulation.”
Not only is it clear that the Democrats don’t want a secure border, but if there is any kind of barrier, they definitely don’t want it to be, quote-unquote, a “wall.” If it’s anything else in name, effective or not, they’ll be able to say the president didn’t deliver on his promise.
In reality, though, Trump could simply use the military to build the wall — and he doesn’t even need to declare a national emergency. Remember, building fortifications is much of what our military did for the first 100 years of our history.
Of course, this would make leftists’ heads explode and inspire court challenges. But this is a time of Truth and the stuff of which heroes, and zeros, are made.
Photo: AP Images
