There comes a time in any presidency — or in any period where leaders must demonstrate their right to lead — when you can compromise no more and you must exhibit something approaching backbone. If a president fails this test, it is a moment that exhibits the reproachable difference between political expediency and a pusillanimous indifference to principle.
President Donald Trump is there with the Wall right now. And while he is figuratively up against a wall, the literal wall that he promised, that became foundational to his entire candidacy, remains a metaphor.
It is perhaps his great misfortune that while he struggles to insist the Wall will still be built, he appears to be on the brink of surrendering on that other great issue that so captivated the hybrid political force that became the Trump phenomenon and the force that catapulted Trump into the White House: illegal immigration.
Clearly, he cannot cave on both issues — especially at the same time — without some grave political consequences and public opprobrium that even in the Trump presidency might prove to be truly insurmountable.
Let me tell you why the Wall is so important. Can you recall a single campaign stop when Trump did not invoke that all-encompassing vision of a “great, great wall” or a “beautiful wall”? Surely there were instances when the Wall escaped his mention but I can assure you that these were few in number. The Wall was always a crowd pleaser because it was a simple concept that was going to achieve an apparently simple objective that successive administrations in Washington had apparently found impossible. It was going to keep out illegal aliens and all the drugs that came with them. It seemed like such a noble pursuit; and Trump assured us all that it would not only be done but that it would be done simply. He knew so because he had built great structures all across America.
He would build a wall and then they would not come.
The Trump supporters are a sturdy breed who can endure the constant slings and arrows of the mainstream media as they hear themselves being described as white supremacists and blue-collar bumpkins. They can chuckle at the perpetual sniping about collusion with Russia and how the Ruskies stole the election away from Hillary Clinton. They can even wonder why Trump has so many globalists and establishment types drifting around his inner circle.
But they need to know that Trump will ultimately deliver on the core messages that he spoke during the campaign. And the Wall is chief among these.
Trump needs to do the right thing here because, quite frankly, the Trump coalition is not only a gathering of true believers; they are his insurance at a second term. The president cannot even rely on the goodwill of his own party because most of the people who shut up when Trump won the presidency will be calling for his head at the first opportune moment. His do-nothing Congress is replete with duplicitous politicians who all think they could do a better job at running the country than Trump.
The Trump supporters are the ones he speaks to every day on Twitter. They are the ones who understand. They are the ones who tell him to Make America Great Again.
They are the ones who want the wall built and Trump needs to keep that promise to them. They might well stop listening if Trump fails to deliver. They will not understand.