For nearly four years. Mr. Trump has ranted about a wall on the US southern border with Mexico.
He and his followers claim that all the ills of our nation are coming through that border and that we can fix everything if we only build a wall.
What kind of a wall? Well, that changes on a regular basis.
When Mr. Trump preached to his crowds, his devoted cult, he sent up a variety of test balloons to see what kind of wall they would respond best to. It seems he got the most cheers when he called out 30 feet, a 30-foot concrete wall!!
Beyond the rally attenders, it was not clear just who wanted the 30-foot wall. Eventually, pollsters did ask the question. It appears the farther you are from the southern border, the more you like the idea of a wall, and, oh yes, the whiter you are too.
The folks who want the wall most, rarely encounter outside of media, anyone who is not of their racial, religious, or ethnic group, although racial is the greatest defining factor.
The “far from the border gang” tends to be very conservative, believing in their “small government” stances, their certainty that reverse racism (whatever that is) is the most pressing problem white people face. Or, maybe the most pressing problem is that hordes of dark-skinned immigrants who don’t share their values/look like them are going to come and take their jobs. It’s a toss-up, I think and nurtured by fear and hate.
How did Americans, so completely ignorant of people from different groups come to their hatred of the others. It probably started with their family and community. Whenever they had contact with other people, non-white people, they returned to their homes in their carefully maintained white zones where they were warned often that if a family of color moved in, the property values would fall and their homes would be worthless. That can be pretty scary to new home owners.
Local and Federal Government sponsored programs endorsed this idea and primarily lent to white, reliable families. These entities made sure the fear and hatred of the other was stoked well enough to ensure that particularly, black families would find no welcome. Realtors only showed people of a particular color the “right home for your family,” in the correct color zone.
This has been going on for many decades, and has resulted in segregated communities of color that somehow manage to have the poorest schools, the worst cared-for streets and infrastructure, the most poverty, while neighboring white enclaves have “superior” schools, lovely clean streets, parks, etc. The white families rarely even have to encounter children of color in schools because they just don’t attend them. And, anyway, they couldn’t keep up. They’re too lazy, uncaring, and well, not bright enough, you know, “I don’t mean anything by that, of course. I’m not racist. I respect everyone.”
The residents of Far From The Border claim to love small government while sucking everything they can from it. Gotta have those farm subsidies, good internet and postal services, good roads “so we can get to our jobs,” good jobs in government contracted companies, help to keep their local hospitals open, drug programs available to those facing the opioid crisis, and on and on. They are insulated from everything but what they want while living in their own narrow world. They don’t see that so much of what they want is paid for by taxpayers from all over the country, even those people of color they disdain.
What makes residents of Far From The Border think a wall of any kind will stop that imagined menace?
The fuel for their fear and hatred of what is on the other side of the southern border is perfectly directed by social media, Fox news, and current government leaders who tell them that everyone has ignored them and their problems, particularly Democrats.
These residents are fearful of being exposed to ideas that are not already their own. They seem to loathe change, certain they cannot face it, that they will be inadequate to its demands. They appear to be afraid America won’t be the America of their childhood and all those people are the cause. They truly don’t know that America has moved on, changed to adapt to new realities.
The purveyors of fear and hate work to change their patrons’ worldview and the way they feel about and treat the people they meet and interact with.
I saw this happen with my mother who was generally a welcoming person who read the newspapers and checked out whatever was in the news. a little over a decade after my father died, she married a man I had known for years and had seen as caring, sensible, and nice. He had started to listen to Rush Limbaugh and had him on the radio every day, getting my mother listening too as it was always in the background. In conversations, Mom started making disparaging remarks about black people (even though her beloved granddaughter’s father was black). She talked against gays and transgender people (even though her oldest daughter was both). She started commenting that women were getting too much above themselves (even though she was an enormously competent, powerful woman in her jobs).
Mr. Limbaugh spouted these things on his shows. I heard it when I was visiting and would challenge her. My sisters and I asked her to turn Rush off when we visited. She eventually did, but I think the damage had been done. I suspect Mom is not unique.
So, back to the wall. The wall is a figment of Mr. Trump’s imagination fueled by people and institutions that want to preserve white America as America. The wall will stop nothing and refugees and other immigrants will continue to come here, but this wall, whether 30 ft. concrete or “steel slats,” gives this crowd of scared white people (who would never consider a 30-ft. wall on our border with Canada) a symbol and Mr. Trump something else he can put his name on.
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