Trump’s presidency has been marked by his single-minded never-ending campaigning. The moment he took office in January of 2017, he made sure to open up his 2020 campaign. Whether or not he did this because it has been such a nice slush fund revenue stream for the Trump family is something for the courts to decide, but he has never stopped campaigning for reelection. Trump’s number one promise to his fearful and bigoted and confused supporters was a big wall that would keep white America’s night terrors out. So far, like all of Trump’s “promises,” this has been mostly a lie. But, November is right around the corner, and our country is stuck in a deadly pandemic, with tens of thousands of Americans already dead, and tens of thousands of Americans still projected to succumb from the 2019 novel coronavirus.
Trump’s clear mishandling of America’s national security in both its preparation and response to COVID-19 is very obvious to most Americans. The Trump administration, whirling around like a drunk Warner Bros. Tasmanian devil, is trying to lay blame and put the responsibility for future public health and economic crises on the shoulders of the country’s governors. Along with this gambit, Trump continues forward, pretending that things aren’t that bad, and that maybe letting people die en masse is better than facing up to the responsibilities the federal government has to its citizens. Don’t you worry, Trump’s going to solve your MAGA economic anxiety. He’s going to push to throw another $500 million of taxpayer money at the magical border wall! To paint it black!
The Washington Post reports that the orange-headed white supremacist in chief is pushing, once again, to have the border wall painted black. Like, with paint. According to the Post, “military commanders and border officials believed as recently as last fall that they had finally talked him out of it.” They were clearly wrong.
The entire border wall project has been a money-wasting sideshow scam since its inception. After millions spent, time and resources wasted, Trump’s wall is a joke. Sections of his impenetrable wall have been blown over by “high winds,” while other sections have been easily breached over and over again. But Trump is all about appearances, and more specifically, making everything he does look like he’s a villain in a 1990s action film. But it isn’t cheap being a conman spending everyone else’s money.
The Post obtained a copy of painting estimates that federal contracting officials produced, and it shows costs ranging from $500 million for two coats of acrylic paint to more than $3 billion for a premium “powder coating” on the structure’s 30-foot steel bollards, the high end of the options the officials have identified.
According to the Post, Trump had a section of wall in California painted black in 2019 at a cost of around $1 million per mile. A lot of money is being spent right now by the federal government, and a lot more is going to be needed to help Americans. The billions already being shifted around to create Trump’s bogus wall could have been used to acquire personal protective gear for our public health infrastructure months ago.
The news that Trump wants to add at least a half a billion dollars of taxpayer money to his fantastical border wall comes at the same time that it is being reported that the U.S. government has once again begun working on constructing sections of the wall amidst the country’s pandemic. The Border Report writes that sections of Trump’s border wall are being worked on in south Texas, where at the very same time, people are getting sick. Where is this money coming from? CNN reports that “several military construction projects in the US that had been put on hold to divert money to President Donald Trump's border wall be restarted.”
An important reminder here is that, along with fixing the geopolitical problems of the Middle East, and heading our medical supply response to the COVID-19 pandemic, decaying Portrait of Dorian Gray Jared Kushner is overseeing the construction of Trump’s border wall. This guarantees a couple of things will happen: Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump will make money off of this somehow, and it definitely will not be completed or even be minimally sufficient.