All of you realize that Trump isn't actually going to build the wall? I mean, he's a narcissistic, racist, sexist demagogue, but he's not stupid. The wall is financially infeasible and isn't actually practical at all... I mean, seriously, someone could just use a frickin' ladder. The sole purpose of the "wall" idea is to get Trump elected. And now that he has, he's going to act like progress is being made while actually doing nothing.
You assume too much pragmatism of Trump. He's trying his hardest to make a Muslim (from non-Trump participating countries) ban a reality, isn't he? And so THE WALL can be the same. There have already been negotiations over THE WALL in a fiscal sense. That Trump has failed to actualize a legitimate wall plan means nothing for his feelings towards THE WALL. He would act the same way whether or not he was planning to actually make THE WALL a reality.
Infeasibility and impracticality are of course not concerns. This is politics we're talking here.
We'll get a better handle on this when budget negotiations happen. The scenario you posit isn't impossible, and it's what a smarter politician would do, but that doesn't mean that's what Trump is actually doing.
The wall he wants is politically, financially, environmentally and logistically impossible. It's never getting built -- but it's also not the wall I'm worried about.
The wall I'm worried about is the one Trump imagines will be his signature achievement. He knows that Congress doesn't like him, although I don't think he has the minimal self-awareness to imagine why; he has further learned that he can't get legislation passed by bullying Congresspeople and throwing parties for his cronies, so he's decided that legislation is stupid and doesn't matter. It just makes the news people laugh at him. He's also given up on anything international because he can't bully world leaders by just demanding everything he wants for nothing and calling himself an excellent negotiator, and Kelly has quite sensibly cut off his access to the vast array of slimeballs who used to give him new ideas to steal so he's running on autopilot. One by one, but with increasing rapidity, his friends are leaving, but the wall remains. The wall is a thing, and he knows how to build things -- better still, he knows how to put his name on things other people have built and paid for. And people like the wall, yes, they say so at the rallies.
Trump isn't demanding the wall for any rational reason. It's just the one thing other people haven't yet taken away from him or changed or put through "procedure", the one idea he can still cling to and understand. He dreams of holding rallies in front of it, putting his name on it in big gold letters, and hocking Trump brand wall merchandise. He wants to point to it, say "I built the wall!" and dare the fake news media to contradict him or say he doesn't know anything. So he will demand a big concrete dog and pony show of some sort and use it as a litmus test for who in Congress is still insane enough to back him. Then he will demand a bigger one, just to show he matters and can still make people dance for him -- and when someone points out deadlines are imminent, he will respond by pointing out that he is very rich and also the President. And people will cheer when the government shuts down, oh yes, because it makes liberals sad.
That's the wall I'm worried about: the big useless one Trump is using as a crutch.
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Topic: AmeriPol thread (Read 4454546 times)