On the day Donald Trump used the Oval Office to say the nation is in crisis from people trying to enter the United States illegally, he sent a fundraising letter to supporters asking them to give him $500,000 in one day.
This isn’t about border security, which is not a crisis. This is not about a wall. This is about creating fear and anger. It’s about politics. It’s about re-election.
If Trump thought this is a national crisis, he would have done something about it during the two years he has been in office.
If Trump truly cared about national security, he would not endanger it by not paying air controllers and TSA agents. Most would-be terrorists come by airplane to legal ports. If he cared about border security, he wouldn’t deny funds to the Coast Guard, which interdicts huge quantities of illegal drugs before they get to the country.
If Trump cared about border security, he would worry about the U.S. border with Canada. More suspected terrorists have tried to cross there than at the border with Mexico.
If he cared about security, he wouldn’t threaten to take money away from the men and women in the military to use Defense Department dollars to try to build a wall over hundreds of miles of private land.
If he cared about border security, he would have spent the $1.6 billion he was given last year for border security. He would have accepted a compromise Republicans and Democrats alike forged before the holidays or one that would have locked in $25 billion over 10 years for border security.
Addicted to outrage, resentment
If he cared about America, he would not have put hundreds of thousands of families in financial jeopardy by refusing to pay federal workers. He alone said on TV that he would “own” a partial shutdown of government. He did it, refusing a bipartisan compromise, because conservative pundits mocked him for not honoring a campaign pledge.
If Trump cared about America, he wouldn’t have ruined her reputation abroad as a harbor for the homeless and destitute by tear-gassing people seeking legal asylum, by taking children from their parents, by branding groups of people as unwanted.
If he cared about America, he would have accepted the compromise to let Dreamers stay in this country. Now they are in limbo, terrified of deportation.
If he cared about America, Trump would not have told over 6,000 documented lies in office, including saying he had already starting building a wall. No, he has not.
Despite Trump’s claim, there is no “uncontrolled illegal migration” into this country. The number has steadily declined for decades. What is new and sad is that thousands of women and children trying to escape gangs and poverty in Latin America and South America trying to get to the U.S. are now being held in dreadful conditions in Mexico.
Drug cartels transfer most illegal drugs to this country on people admitted through legal ports of entry. A wall would not change that. Most opioid drugs such as fentanyl are coming from China through airports. No wall would change that.
What he wants is a way to save face, a way to keep his supporters addicted to his peculiar brand of outrage, theatrics and resentment. He wants another White House term, even if it comes at the cost of a government shutdown affecting millions and sullying America’s image in the world.
There is a word for all this: pathetic.
Ann McFeatters is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Email: amcfeatters@nationalpress.com.
