Symbolic Wall Will Cause Real Damage

The brilliance and horror of Trump's "build a wall" campaign promise is that it's largely symbolic, of course; because of the Bush Adminstration's Secure Fence Act of 2006, fences and walls are constantly being built along the US/Mexico border so all Trump has to do is point to some of this work and fund it a bit more and he's a hero to the folks who want to seal America up into some kind of dystopian ethnically safe consumerist theme park . . . but the consensus among anyone who has actually studied border walls is that they don't work . . . it's expensive and difficult to build a twenty foot wall, and it's even more expensive to maintain and patrol it-- but it's really cheap to build a 21 foot ladder (or dig a tunnel or go some where the wall isn't) which would be fine, if this wasn't our tax money going towards this gigantic quixotic concrete patriotic emblem . . . but that's not the worst of it, the worst of it is that the Secure Fence Act usurps all environmental laws . . . so while the wall isn't going to curtail immigration, and it's going to cost us money, those are just stupid human problems-- and we are especially stupid these days-- but the fact that it's going to do irreparable damage to delicate ecosystems, endangered species, and the movement and breeding of wildlife is just heinous . . . if you can stomach more on this, check out this episode of 99% Invisible.