Border wall speech: Trump is losing the macho game of staring himself down in the mirror

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/09/border-wall-speech-trump-is-losing-the-macho-game-of-staring-himself-down-in-the-mirror?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR38vtj7GQGb85uFSkpOO1k0Zq7f1s7lTu3kXQ7zSm8uQaN5kHs3fGkaqeE

Border wall speech: Trump is losing the macho game of staring himself down in the mirror
Richard Wolffe
Far from reassuring a troubled nation, Trump tried to scare the living daylights out of them
Wed 9 Jan 2019 00.08 EST
Last modified on Wed 9 Jan 2019 01.30 EST


The Oval Office is an iconic space in American political life. Televised addresses from the seat of presidential power have marked historic moments of national anxiety: JFK and the Cuban missile crisis, Ronald Reagan and the Challenger disaster, George H. W. Bush and the start of the Gulf War.

To that august list we can now add Donald Trump and the most pressing crisis facing this commander-in-chief: the disastrous damage already inflicted on his own ego by his dopey idea of a beautiful border wall.

This is a very real crisis inside one man’s cranium and it’s playing out in the living rooms of a weary nation. That crisis is called reality.

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It is beyond time to recognize that foreigners have infiltrated this country’s borders, as malicious governments send us their very worst people. Unfortunately they are not crossing the southern border but rather taking flying caravans as they travel from Russia to meet with Trump’s aides in various foreign capitals. Some have even tried to melt into the heartland as card-carrying members of the National Rifle Association. If we ever needed a space force, it’s now. Failing that, the president could trust his own CIA and FBI again.

Trump goes to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to round up a posse to take on the immigrants just as some of his formerly loyal deputies start to get scared off by common sense and the looming 2020 elections.

This is no joke. In the blathering words of the great bumbler himself, this is “a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.” If they re-open the government and start paying people like the airport security officers, they could do no end of harm. We’re talking about Trump’s reputation here, not some trivial abstraction.

“When I took the oath of office, I swore to protect our country,” Trump concluded. “And that is what I will always do, so help me God.” While you’re at it, dear Lord, please help the children at the border. They’re human pawns, you know.

• Richard Wolffe is a columnist for the Guardian US