Trump's wall is performance art, not border security Chicago Tribune, Mar 14, 2018, Steve Chapman
Donald Trump loves the ceremonial parts of his job, and his trip to California to inspect prototypes for a border wall was pure theater. He got to project toughness, point to something tangible, make big promises and take credit — without actually accomplishing anything. He’s not a president; he’s a performance artist.
Of all his campaign pledges, none was more appealing to those at his rallies than the border wall, and none was more harebrained. The idea of creating an impermeable vacuum seal on our southern perimeter was appealing to opponents of immigration (legal or not) and drug smuggling. Forcing Mexico to pick up the tab made it irresistible.
Never mind that the idea had as much chance of materializing as a rainforest in the Sonoran Desert. Even Trump has hedged: “We don’t need 2,000 (miles). We need 1,000, because we have natural barriers.†But promising a 1,000-mile wall with hundreds of miles of holes might not have stoked raucous cheers from his crowds.
The cost would be enormous. An internal report by the Department of Homeland Security put the price at $21.6 billion. A study by the Democratic staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee calculated it at $70 billion, not counting maintenance. That’s more than $200 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. — and zero dollars for every man, woman and child in Mexico.
More:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-perspec-chapman-trump-wall-mexico-immigration-20180314-story.html
