Unraveling Donald Trump admits his border wall is a fence, or he thinks it’s already been built, or something

| 5:23 pm EDT September 14, 2017
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Last night Donald Trump told Democratic leaders that he was willing to cave to them on DACA, while also abandoning his long running idea for a border wall. After the Democrats announced this, the backlash against Trump from his own base came so swiftly and harshly that he quickly denied he’d caved. Now he’s unraveling so severely that his latest statement on the border wall seems to assert that it’s not even a wall – or that it’s already been built.

This morning Trump tweeted “The WALL, which is already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls, will continue to be built.” Let’s try to parse this gymnastics competition of a sentence if we can. He appears to be admitting that portions of his “wall” aren’t going to be anything more than a fence. He’a also acknowledging that many of these fences, and indeed some of the mythical wall, have already long been in place. This means he’s finally admitting what the rest of us knew during the election: he’s been talking about building a border wall that’s already sorta kinda there. Oh, and he thinks that renovating is the same thing as building.

The tweet has left Trump’s base, which is already outraged by his flip flop on DACA, even more weary. Worse than admitting that he’ll never be able to get his wall built, he’s now taking steps toward admitting that there was never any need for a wall. The border was already largely walled off and fenced off long before he ever got into politics. Moreover, none of this has any impact on immigration.

For undocumented Mexican immigrants, the most common method of entry is to book a round trip flight into the United States under the guise of a vacation, only to never get on the return flight home. Donald Trump’s wall would have no impact on this. Nor would it address the tunnels that have been dug under the border. Nor is there any reason to fear Mexican immigrants, beyond racism. Trump’s wall idea is essentially a solution that’s already in place to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.