I was so wrong.
We should build Trump’s wall, and we should do it soon.
What a fool I was to seethe outrage over one of President Donald Trump’s first lamebrain notions, and one of his biggest lies: the Wall.
“We need a wall,” quickly became Trump’s 2016 campaign mantra, invoking rage from me and millions like me. “And who’s going to pay for that wall?”
You are, as it unsurprisingly turns out.
And you and the rest of the nation are going to pay for Trump’s wall, and his presidency, in ways we can’t even imagine. Yet.
But I agree with Trump. Build the damn thing. We’re going to need it.
No, we don’t need hundreds of billions of dollars of useless perimeter to make the Mexico border more secure. Every credible expert agrees the wall will do little or nothing to stem the flow of immigrants into Texas and Arizona.
We need the biggest, most enduring, most ostentatious and unavoidable wall we can build as a permanent monument to the worst thing that America has ever unleashed: Trump.
Thousands of miles of concrete and steel will create an eternal testament to the folly Americans inflicted upon themselves by electing Trump president in 2016.
Well, not all Americans, as the facts point out. It wasn’t even a majority of Americans who voted for Trump. Hillary won that election. So the wall can also stand as a testament to how mistaken the founding fathers were about the Electoral College, too.
But more than anything, Trump’s Wall will for generations warn the country what can happen, even here in America, when people turn to alluring propaganda instead of unsatisfying facts. Seeing that just a few short years ago it seemed preposterous that anything even remotely like Trump could happen in the United States, the Trump Monument to America’s Stupidity must be an unavoidable beacon to warn us that, “never again” can happen again right here at home.
Each portion of Trump’s Wall should serve to remind us of why this newspaper and almost every single newspaper in the country warned America what would happen should Trump get elected.
Just scroll across SentinelColorado.com or any newspaper website, and you’ll see what I mean.
A short list? Children in cages, a looming global trade war that could be catastrophic, already hammering American farmers, a lying president who now lies at an even greater pace and with even greater impunity, a health care system on the verge of collapse, complicity with foul and ruthless dictators in Russia and North Korea that unnerves a vast political spectrum, a shove against global climate change work that could harm or kill millions of Americans, and possibly the entire planet, a bevy of corrupt and inept administration chiefs who provably are either using their office for personal gain or are wildly unqualified to serve, and a brewing eruption of indictments for crimes he, his family and his comrades committed on the way into and through the White House, which tread or wallow into treason, collusion, obstruction, and a vast array of fraud that promises to be historic in nature.
Those are just the top recent hits on the Trump Crime Family Parade, which a wall can serve to warn the world against the consequences of voter apathy and malfeasance.
Then there are the tweets.
It would be wise to spend a few miles of wall dedicated solely to every crazy, nefarious and sordid thing Trump tweeted during his career as a TV reality show persona and then U.S. president.
“So funny to watch the Fake News, especially NBC and CNN. They are fighting hard to downplay the deal with North Korea…Our Country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools!”
Like other rancid regimes across the world, Trump and his White House gang spend endless resources undermining the free press and other media, real polls, real science, real data, and reality in general. He spins delusion to a small but faithful group of fans. His campaign of propaganda is the single most dangerous thing Trump deploys every day.
Let Trump’s wall warn a future America about politicians who undermine the media to control the masses.
Yes, spend a few miles of Trump Wall to highlight the sheer cruelty, stupidity and culpability Trump tweets out daily, and without retribution.
But the biggest parts of the wall must be reserved for his victims. All of us. Every living American deserves to be remembered on Trump’s Wall for the agonizing fear, the embarrassment, the flagrant and subtle racism, the broken promises, the lies, the diminished liberties, the constant worry, the pillaged environment and endangered planet, the allies he has abused and the enemies he has empowered.
The Wall will be a monument to Trump’s presidency, and the growing list of his crimes against America, humanity and nature that, by electing him president, we have inflicted upon ourselves.
Call the wall “Never Again.” And after a few generations, when a populist loudmouth campaigns by appealing to humanity’s worst sides, they can see the wall America built to protect itself from a President or Governor or Senator Trump the next time he surfaces.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com