# Donald Trump vs. the US-Mexico border **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 29, 2019, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729 "2019-03-29T18:39:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/61 "2019-04-01T00:43:23Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > More people turning up at the border = more stress and anxiety in the US over immigration = more support for authoritarian ‘strong man’ solutions = more votes for Trump. > > I’m afraid that from his point of view, making more people poor and desperate can only be a good thing Yeah. I’m not sure DJT is smart enough to come up with this tactical fake-out,\* but Stephen Miller might’ve. I’m sure he’s read _Camp of the Saints_,\*\* and since that novel radicalized _him_, a bunch of caravans getting breathless coverage on FNC might do the trick for others. \*Well, I guess it’s about as sophisticated as a lackluster pro wrestling storyline, so maybe he could’ve done it. \*\*(If not in his high school fascist phase, then when he met Steve Bannon.) ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/62 "2019-04-01T01:41:36Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Som Trump thinks a bixer can outfight a machinegun? Seriously, how us that jackass alive? That’s what I get for typing on a phone on a bus in Monday morning traffic in Beijing. This should’ve read: > [@](#): > > So, Trump thinks a boxer can outfight a machine gun. Seriously, how is that jackass alive? ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/63 "2019-04-01T02:39:26Z")
> [@Anny\_Middon](#): > > I’m sure this is a really stupid question, but what does “closing the border” actually mean? > > I envision that those checkpoints where cars and pedestrians can cross will have big Do Not Enter signs, and the guards who currently check papers will stand ready to prevent anyone from getting through. > > But that just stops the legal traffic across the border. It doesn’t do jackshit for the illegal traffic, which I thought was the whole point. Most illegals come over by airplane anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/64 "2019-04-01T02:42:34Z")
Honestly, **Monty** , I just read it in my head with a really awkward half-Cockney/half-Brooklyn/half-hopped-up-on-goofballs accent and it made perfect sense. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/65 "2019-04-01T03:06:11Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > I think Trump’s incompetence also shields him in a way. He has NOT built a wall along our southern border, he has NOT repealed the Affordable Care Act. All he has to do is talk about it like a true con man, string his marks along. Hearing the words is all that matters to a sucker. Just imagine if Obamacare was actually stopped suddenly, and some dumb red hatted asshole in line at a pharmacy finds out that his inurance is gone, and his $8 perscription now costs $80. The problem is that while Trump is acting as a big dumb target, a lot of other smarter conservatives are quietly working away in his shadow. People like Pence, McConnell, and Ryan are enacting laws that nobody is paying attention to because Trump is drawing all of the attention. I think the way they’ve treated Obamacare is an example of how the smarter conservatives act. Repealing it outright would have caused too much public opposition. Instead they’ll just load it up with ridiculous obstruction and make it sure it doesn’t work. The only thing they’ll keep intact is Obama’s name so they can pretend the mess they created was his fault. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/66 "2019-04-01T05:59:20Z")
So this cutting aid item is confusing me, the reports tell us that [Homeland Security just finished a meeting with the Central American nations to continue with plans for concerted efforts to improve security and job creation in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.](Soratobu Imouto) Then also that congress already approved the funding so Trump can do little about it. And yet the troglodyte has ordered the State Department to halt aid to the so-called Northern Triangle countries as if that would not do a thing to congress or to Homeland Security’s efforts. Is Trump looking more like the past dictator from Portugal, Salazar, that was told after he lost his faculties that he still remained in control of Portugal and was given fake papers to sign and orders that he gave where never going to be carried away, but told to him in private that they were? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/67 "2019-04-01T08:58:43Z")
Well, he certainly seems to share Salazar’s notion that anybody(\*) wanting to leave the country for whichever reason and length of time is a traitor. ISTR Salazar didn’t have much of a problem with people trying to enter the country but I don’t expect those got a lot of red carpets either. - With Trump’s usual caveat of this not applying to him and his entourage. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/68 "2019-04-01T16:23:25Z")
> [@Anny\_Middon](#): > > I’m sure this is a really stupid question, but what does “closing the border” actually mean? > > I envision that those checkpoints where cars and pedestrians can cross will have big Do Not Enter signs, and the guards who currently check papers will stand ready to prevent anyone from getting through. > > But that just stops the legal traffic across the border. It doesn’t do jackshit for the illegal traffic, which I thought was the whole point. As has been pointed out repeatedly (and ignored by the Trump administration) most of the drugs and criminal activity comes through legal points of entry, so shutting down the border would effectively reduce the amount of such activity entering our country. Of course doing this makes as much sense as a shop owner refusing to let any customers into his store in order to prevent shop lifting. Now there is a cynical part of me that thinks that the reason Trump is proposing this is so that it will force people to cross the border outside the usual points of entry and so provide a justification for his wall. But doing so requires Trump to be the sort of strategist who plays king to King 4 as forking move against the queen, as opposed to doing it because he likes the horsey. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/69 "2019-04-01T16:34:07Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > But doing so requires Trump to be the sort of strategist who plays king to King 4 as forking move against the queen, as opposed to doing it because he likes the horsey. I’m sure he’d prefer moving the phallic rook over the knight. He does all this because inciting bigotry in his base keeps them riled up and ready to ignore their own financial self-interest and vote for him. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/70 "2019-04-01T16:43:39Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > And after those, he’s going after New Mexico. And [Calexico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calexico,_California) for good measure. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/71 "2019-04-01T17:15:12Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I’m sure he’d prefer moving the phallic rook over the knight. I dunno; horses are pretty well hung aren’t they? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/72 "2019-04-01T17:18:04Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > I dunno; horses are pretty well hung aren’t they? True. But if it’s an odd set where the rooks look like mushrooms, then he’d certainly play those at first opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/73 "2019-04-01T17:40:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Even more importantly, it will cause the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing white supremacist troglodytes who support him to express their adoration every time he holds one of his Nazi-style rallies. > > I see that the Orange Peril is also appealing to the racist troglodytes [by cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras](https://us.cnn.com/2019/03/31/politics/mick-mulvaney-northern-triangle-countries-aid-cnntv/index.html). This of course makes perfect sense: people are fleeing those countries in caravans trying to enter the US in large part because of crushing poverty, so it naturally follows that making them even poorer and more desperate will solve the problem. Either that, or sticking it to brown people is the exciting name of the game here. My wife showed me something on Facebook yesterday where someone posted a screen cap of Fox News with a banner “Trump cuts aid to three Mexican countries.” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/74 "2019-04-01T18:30:01Z")
Well, it’s called “Facebook”, not “Brainbook”. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/75 "2019-04-01T21:21:06Z")
[Fox News has apologized for the ‘3 Mexican countries’ headline](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/31/media/fox-news-mexican-countries-stelter/index.html). ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/76 "2019-04-03T15:39:25Z")
**Congress must get together and immediately eliminate the loopholes at the Border! If no action, Border, or large sections of Border, will close. This is a National Emergency!** Shit or get off the pot, old man! You are like a broken fucking record! ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/77 "2019-04-03T15:52:33Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > **Congress must get together and immediately eliminate the loopholes at the Border! If no action, Border, or large sections of Border, will close. This is a National Emergency!** > > Shit or get off the pot, old man! You are like a broken fucking record! Border closed? Oh no, not border! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/78 "2019-04-03T16:24:09Z")
I hope he does it. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/79 "2019-04-03T18:33:33Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Border closed? Oh no, not border! Border and border! What is border? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729/80 "2019-04-03T19:12:29Z")
So let me get this straight … our cheeto in chef blathers on for the past 3 years how Mexico is paying for a border fence … Mexico refuses so he bumps up ‘financial penalties’ on Mexico so ‘they are paying for the wall’ and now he wants to choke off _legal_ traffic because of the illegal traffic … Hm, all the investors in the auto and other industries that ship and reship parts and such now won’t be able to get their stuff, our food service suppliers won’t be able to get the fruits and veggies so our groceries and restaurants will be going short … DId I somehow glitch the matrix and end up in Venezuela? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-vs-the-us-mexico-border/831729.md?page=5)