“I’m Donald Trump’s Border Wall, and I’m Feeling a Little Left Out”
Remember me? Yeah, I wouldn’t either. Even though I was once the centerpiece of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions. I’m the wall that was intended to stretch across the entirety of the U.S.-Mexico border as a deterrent against undocumented immigration. Back in 2016, it seemed as if everything the president-to-be said and did revolved around me in some way. Now, a decade later, I can’t help but feel like I’m being left out in the cold. This is especially true when one considers I was never built in the first place.
It’s baffling, isn’t it? President Trump prides himself on being a builder, especially of vanity projects that serve no purpose except to sate his own ego. He has a ballroom in progress in the White House no one wants except him. He’s drafting plans for an archway in Washington D.C. that will take emphasis away from Arlington National Cemetery. He’s even planning a forty-seven to fifty-story skyscraper in Miami for his Presidential Library! Wouldn’t he want to add me to his to-do list as his days in office, and in the land of the living, slowly dwindle down to nothing? What am I if not another batshit novelty in as-yet unmanifested physical form?
When was the last time President Trump, or any other elected Republican official even mentioned me? Much like the January 6th Insurrection, it seems I’ve become a forbidden topic. But why? President Trump is so preoccupied with leaving his mark on humanity that he’s willing to do pretty much anything, regardless of how ill-advised, unethical, and patently illegal it is. What’s stopping him from finishing me? Aside from the fact that I was essentially never started?
He’s not doing any of the things that he is right now because it makes sense, or is good for our country in the short or long term. He’s doing it simply because he can, and because no other president before him has dared to do so for those aforementioned reasons. Does a wall across the border really seem so out of character? Even, nay-especially, now? I don’t think so. I mean, as a non-existent inanimate object, I don’t “think” at all, but you see what I mean.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear President Trump never truly cared about me, or about solving the problems of undocumented immigration. By extension, it stands to reason that he never cared about you, the voters, either. Instead, he’s trying to remake the world in his own image! Is it any surprise that things are so ugly right now?
All things considered, it’s wholly appropriate that he never got around to building me. Let’s not forget that six of his businesses declared bankruptcy, and seemingly everything else he did before The Apprentice went belly up. Decades before he put action into his long-held political aspirations, he built his business empire on lies, hubris, and crime-adjacent activity that would land anyone else in a federal penitentiary. Maybe my utter lack of existence makes perfect sense. I’m not happy about it, but at least something about this man’s record is consistent.
Anyway, thanks for reading. All the best to you, and perhaps you’ll see me again in some museum display a little while from now. Right alongside the travesties of Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, and every other aspiring Antichrist who did everything in their power to leave an irremovable stain upon humanity. That too, would be consistent for President Donald Trump. sigh