Is border wall a real crisis or imagined Kabuki theater?

Jim McCully: The Right Stuff

In the stentorian and oh-so self-important voice of our mainstream media we are treated to another of, what seems, and everlasting conga line of real or imagined crisis from the political left.

Nightly news reports through day 25 of the federal government partial shutdown that, oh my, gasp, Trump hasn’t folded to the unending pressure from the Chuck and Nancy show over how to secure our southern border. Is this real or imagined? Stand by.

We all see what we want to see and hear until we are forced, by whatever means, to see and hear otherwise. In the title I use the words real or imagined, crisis, wall, and Kabuki theater. OK let’s look at them as defined by the Urban Dictionary:

• Kabuki theater: Artifice, fake, insincere, something done only for show.
• Wall: A structure of brick, stone, wood or other material which forms a barrier.
• Crisis: A time of intense difficulty, trouble or danger. A time when an important change takes place or dire consequences ensue.

Real and imagined speak for themselves.

Now, let’s take a look at some facts and you decide. According to federal law enforcement, 90 percent of illegal fentanyl in America comes through our southern border. Fentanyl is a very fast-acting analgesic and sedative abused for its heroin-like effect which, according to the same sources, kill approximately 300 Americans a day or 109,500 human beings a year. Sounds like a crisis to me.

We have between 350,000 and 400,000 people illegally smuggled across our southern border annually as figures fluctuates. Do we know who they really are? No. Do we know why they really came? No. But they keep coming. Why? What is it beyond the obvious?

The question is do we, as a nation, have the right to control our border? Under every standard of law and common sense, we do. Indeed, we have an absolute duty to do so. Why did we have Ellis Island and Angel’s Island screening people for decades if not those very reasons? Why did we remove those who were unfit medically, morally, psychologically, politically? To protect ourselves.

We do have a crisis but also Kabuki theater. Yes. We have media pot-stirring. We have congressional leaders calling our president and family profane names. We have the president lashing out against this. We watch our leaders engage in an unseemly game of chicken. We see the media glorify the Democratic leadership while damning the president despite his numerous successes. (source: Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media and Public Policy found negative reporting as follows: CNN, 93 percent; NBC, 93 percent; CBS, 91 percent; TheNew York Times, 87 percent; The Washington Post, 83 percent; The Wall Street Journal, 70 percent; Fox, 52 percent.)

Simple math says 81.28 percent of the time the president gets slammed by the media. How would you feel about getting up every day having nothing but vitriol and slanted reporting thrown at you and yours? Trump derangement syndrome exists, folks.

We have an unsecure border, we need a wall/barrier/technology now. We need real immigration reform now, to ensure we get immigration we need and want. We are not the world dumping ground for the chronically unemployed, ill, criminal elements, etc. We have a right and a duty to know who comes to America, to California, to Solano County, and why.

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants paid medical care paid for 135,000-plus immigrants who are in the state illegally. Why? Votes, perhaps.

Is it a crisis? Yes. Do we need a wall/barrier/technology? Yes. Is it Kabuki theater, too? Yes, unfortunately it is.

I want to trust my state and national legislators, but I don’t. An attitude of party first and agenda politics rule the day. There were an estimated 266,000 illegal immigrants charged with approximately 100,000 assaults and murders in two years. Crisis, yeah. Chuck and Nancy present Kabuki theater. Remember this in 2020.

Jim McCully is the northwest regional vice chairman of the California State Republican Party and a member of the Solano County Republican Central Committee.

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