It’s uncertain whether President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall will ever separate the US from Mexico. But it’s already clear that the wall is reinforcing the fundamental fault line separating blue from red America.
Opinions about the wall have become deeply interwoven with attitudes about the larger changes in culture, demography and gender relations that are reshaping American society. While Trump and congressional Democrats are mostly debating the wall on the grounds of effectiveness and efficiency, polling also suggests that for each party the barrier has become a powerful symbol of whether these underlying changes in American life should be welcomed or resisted. …
In an ordinary legislative confrontation, both parties’ desire to express concern about border security would usually lead them toward a compromise that incorporated priorities of each side (including possibly protections for immigrant populations such as the young people brought to the country illegally by their parents).
The problem is that in this “clash of absolutes,” the wall has acquired such symbolic power for each side that it would require enormous dexterity to craft a solution that allows both sides to insist they have held firm. CONT.
Ronald Brownstein, CNN