Trump veers back and forth on Wall

Build that wall! Eventually. Or at least patch up some existing fencing. If Chuck and Nancy will agree.

Donald Trump’s signature pledge to build a border wall, aka The Wall, is diminishing almost by the hour. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, said Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the 19thcentury German field marshal. He left no record of his view of what happens when an emotive slogan dressed up as a policy proposal comes into contact with the enemy, but we can assume that he didn’t think it would fare well.

It hasn’t. Trump is paying the price for making The Wall the most powerful symbol of immigration restriction, when it isn’t particularly important or achievable. He piled lurid fantasy on top of absurd overpromising by asserting that Mexico would somehow be made to pay for the barrier.

This worked brilliantly top three priorities for tightening up on illegal immigration. A mandatory e-verify system to discourage illegal hiring, an entry-exit system to track visitors, and local and state cooperation with the feds all are much more important. A border wall is powerless to stop visa overstays, which account for about half of illegal immigration, and it won’t reduce the jobs magnet that inevitably draws people here.

If Democrats were smart, they’d let Trump build whatever he wants on the border in exchange for massive concessions on other policies. But the Democratic base is too adamantly against The Wall, which it considers a symbol of exclusion and xenophobia, to make this negotiating strategy possible. Upon contact with the enemy, Trump will be lucky if The Wall ends up as much more than architectural plans and demonstration projects.