Donald Trump’s failed border wall stunt just keeps getting uglier
Until threatened with a lawsuit a couple of years ago, Donald Trump often had his handlers play a recording of the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” at rallies. A new study published in a leading medical journal reveals that Trump did get what he wanted with a certain aspect of his failed border wall—and it’s every bit as sick and twisted as he is.
As I wrote three years ago, building a racist, tough-guy border wall was not satisfying enough for Trump. The sadistic cretin’s ultimate fantasy was to inflict enduring pain and disability on all who dare attempt to cross his “beautiful” monument to American xenophobia. The darkest soul ever to have resided in the White House enthusiastically ordered engineers to paint the slats a dark color to absorb heat, despite the added cost. Trump also demanded that the top of the slats be pointed to “cut the hands of climbers.”
Thankfully, Trump is no longer in a position to crack his depraved whip on border wall construction between sessions of “Executive Time.” However, a disturbing report published by JAMA Surgery on Friday exposes severe injury and even several deaths as consequential to a Trump-imposed design element. Within days of his poorly attended inauguration in January 2017, Trump signed an executive order to extend the height to 30 feet (from 6-17 feet) for hundreds of miles of border wall.
According to the report, migrant deaths, trauma center admissions, and injury severity all increased as a direct result of Trump’s design change in the San Diego area. Deaths from falls rose from zero to 16 after 2019 while admissions jumped from 67 between 2016 and 2018 to 375 between 2019 and 2021. According to the physicians, the injuries were unlike what they were used to seeing: “pelvic fractures, spinal cord injuries, brain injuries and a lot of open fractures when the bone comes through the skin,” with “many requiring intensive care and staged operative reconstructions.”
To add insult to injury, most of Trump’s victims lacked health insurance with no access to rehab or physical therapy, which meant extended stays in the hospital. While we may read such a report of pain and death with horror, it’s exactly the type of development that would warm Trump’s heart—if only he had one.
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month