After the private meeting that Trump turned public with Democratic leaders on December 11, 2018, Nancy Pelosi said she and many other Democrats considered Trump’s wall “immoral, ineffective and expensive.” That was a good start, but it needs to continue.
Once again society may suffer because Democrats do not explain themselves, even when they are certain they have the moral high ground. Democrats may be losing the argument about the meaning of the government shutdown situation.
The mainstream media is currently describing the situation as a test of wills between the Democrats and Trump. The implications of the mainstream media’s portrayal of events are clear–Trump wants his wall and is being stubborn about it, and the Democrats are being just a stubborn against funding the wall. On the one hand is Trump pursuing his campaign promise—actually only part of it because he had outrageously contended that Mexico would pay for the wall. On the other hand are the Democrats who generally oppose Trump.
Democratic leaders—and others—need to keep restating that the wall is immoral, ineffective, and too expensive. They provide little information about the impractical case of the wall.
Let’s take a quick look at the three ways the Democrats characterize this dumb idea.
The wall would be expensive. Yes, the wall would be costly. Cost estimates by experts range from a minimum of $25 billion to nearly $80 billion. The wall would cost substantially more than the $5 billion requested by Trump. One conservative commentator suggested that $25 billion could be better spent providing 50,000 small businesses $500,000 each to get their businesses up and running.
The wall would be ineffective. The wall is a solution in search of a problem. There is no crisis at the border, at least not one that was not caused by the Trump administration.
Fewer people are crossing the Mexican border illegally now than previously. The number of illegal persons coming across the Mexican border is substantially below the level it was in the year 2000.
There is no drug crisis at the border. According to a 2015 report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 95 percent of drugs enter the United States via container ships or other vessels. So a wall can do absolutely nothing to stop drug trafficking.
And terrorists do not enter the U.S. across the Mexican border. A Bureau in the State Department issued a report in July 2017 that indicated there was “no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States.” So a wall will not stop terrorism.
The wall is immoral. Symbolically, it does not represent America, a nation built on immigrants. The wall is an expression of Trump’s continuing campaign of vilifying non-Europeans. Building a wall on the Mexican border but not the Canadian one creates the perception of racist white nationalism.
Additionally, it could strain Mexico-U.S. relations even further.
I must applaud the Democratic leadership for holding fast to their “no wall funding” position. However, more is needed. Democrats must compete in characterizing issues—in this instance by continually explaining why they oppose the wall.