Donald Trump's Wall

About

Donald Trump's Wall refers to a campaign promise made by Republican Presidential nominee of the 2016 United States Presidential Election Donald Trump to build a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico in order to keep Mexicans and people from central and south America out of the country.

Origin

On June 16th, 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for presidency. Among his campaign promises was to build a wall on the border between Mexico and the United States, and that Mexico would pay for it.^[1]

Spread

The promise became one of Trump's signature issues. It has received intense criticism. Former President of Mexico Vincente Fox said in an interview there was no way Mexico would pay for "that fucking wall."^[1] It has also been knocked for being intensely jingoistic,^[2] expensive,^[3] and ineffective, as many illegal immigrants don't enter the country by simply hopping the border but rather overstay visas or are smuggled in.^[5] Towards the end of the presidential campaign, Trump has modified his position on the wall, saying the wall would be paid for by American taxpayers, with Mexico reimbursing America afterwards.^[4]

Various Examples

Throughout the Republican presidential primaries and leading up to the general election, Donald Trump's US-Mexico Wall proposal steadily grew into a major talking point of his presidential campaign, as well as a subject of ridicule from his opponents and critics online, spawning a series of image macros and photoshopped parodies poking fun at the plan

Trump's Tariff Proposal

On January 25th, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements," calling for the construction of a wall along the United States-Mexican border. While the order does not prescribe the specifications, logistics or funding for the controversial construction project, the plan seemed to rely on the presumption that Mexico would reimburse the United States for the cost. In response, Mexican President Enrique Peña rejected and condemned President Trump's proposal by insisting that "Mexico won't pay for any wall" in a televised address, while canceling his upcoming presidential summit with Trump.

On the next day, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that the Trump administration is considering a 20% tariff on Mexican imports as one of the possible ways to fund the construction of a wall.

"I think when you take a look at the plan that's taking shape now using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit from, like Mexico. […] We can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone."

Wall Requirements

On March 19th, Fox News ran a segment on The White House's requirements for the border wall. The requirements were simple: It must be 30 feet high, look good from the U.S. side, and be difficult to climb or cut through (shown below).

The screenshot of the requirements soon became a point of mockery on Twitter, as users made fun of the simple requirements for the wall and the perceived strangeness of the "look good from U.S. side requirement. One popular tweet by @LydiaBurrell edited the shot with the lyrics to "You Gotta Be" by Des'ree and gained over 1,600 retweets (shown below).

The jokes were covered in Twitter Moments,^[9] Select All,^[10] Elite Daily,^[11] and more.

GoFundMe Campaign

On December 17th, 2018, Florida resident Brian Kolfag created a GoFundMe^[13] titled "We The People Will Fund The Wall," proposing to raise money to help build the border wall. Within 72 hours, the campaign raised upwards of $6.8 million of its $1.0 billion goal (shown below).

In the campaign's description, Kolfag denounces illegal immigration and claims "“If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.” On December 20th, Redditor zzyzx66 submitted a photoshopped version of the campaign page, displaying "Ronald T Trump" as the sole contributor to /r/meme^[12] (shown below).

State of Emergency Declaration

On February 14th, 2019, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced via the Notes app that Donald Trump had signed a government funding bill to keep the government open after the 2018-2019 Government Shutdown and that he would be declaring a National State of Emergency over what he has called a crisis at the border.^[14]

The move was supported by Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.^[15] Declaring a National Emergency allows Trump to move funding from other areas of the government for the purposes of constructing a border wall.^[16] He could siphon funds away from military departments of the government, including the Department of Defense, Homeland Security and the Army Corps of Engineers. If he Trump signs a state of emergency declaration, he would likely face legal challenges in court from Democrats and from the military branches from whom he would be taking money.^[15] Congress could also try to block the declaration, though Trump could veto their block if they do not pass a block with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. ^[17] In response, Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill to stop the president from using disaster recovery funds for the Wall.^[18] Senator Lindsey Graham^[19] stated he stood firmly behind Trump's proposal. Senator Chuck Schumer spoke to the Senate saying the move was a distraction tactic on Trump's part to cover up his failure to secure funding for the wall (shown below). Nancy Pelosi stated that the issues like gun control were more worthy of an emergency declaration.^[20]

Declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency, and a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that President realDonaldTrump broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for his wall. pic.twitter.com/almWo3OHHM

— Chuck Schumer (SenSchumer) February 14, 2019

Online, many Twitter users were outraged by the news. TV writer David Simon called it an example of "American Fascism," gaining over 270 retweets (shown below, left). Republican commentator Joe Walsh said declaring emergency was a "cowardly con job" that ensured the wall would never be built (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References