Trump hopped onto Airforce One during his first regime on Tuesday, June 23, 2020, traveling to Yuma, Arizona. Once there, his caravan (composed primarily of white people) journeyed due south in front of reporters and cameras from around the country and the world to expose his erection of a large 200-mile-long protrusion across the southern border with Mexico; some of it a replacement, some a new extension of pre-existing barriers.Good fences make good neighbors, says the proverb that Robert Frost embedded in his famous poem Mending Wall. However, Donald Trump has misinterpreted and exploited the concept for his own distorted means to attain his end goal of keeping as many people of color out of the United States as possible. Related Presidential historian foresees disastrous end for Donald Trump His campaign slogan of Make America Great Again served as a not-so-subtle dog whistle for Make AmericaWhite Again, which the nation never was from its very beginning, as Europeans killed First Nation peoples and stole their land.Robert Frosts poem was a polemic arguingagainstbuilding fences (walls) that separate us from our neighbors. Opening with the line, Something there is that doesnt love a wall, the poem describes the narrators efforts to convince his neighbornotto construct a fence. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today Frost quoted the proverb as an ironic ploy to express his deeply held view that physical and figurative boundaries separate people from one another and from themselves.Walls, in the literal and metaphorical sense, however, have stood and continue to stand as the foundation of Donald Trumps campaign and of his entire presidency. In fact, walls define the focus of his entire life. Tearing down the house, erecting obstaclesMost recently, without even submitting his proposed plans to the National Capital Planning Commission to renovate the White House, which other presidents have done voluntarily, Trump ordered the construction of his crystal-chandeliered, gold-plated, extravagant Louis XIV-style ballroom to serve as his walled bunker for protecting the ultra-rich and powerful and keeping out the underclass barbarians from his gates.During his first term, he walled off peaceful protesters in front of the White House with a high mesh fence and an irritating plume of mustard gas set off by armed officials so he could conduct a photo op holding a bible upside down in front of a church.Trump was actually even holding the bible UPSIDE DOWN.[image or embed] ianneilschmidt1.bsky.social (@ianneilschmidt1.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 5:10 PM With his America First declaration, Trump has placed a figurative diplomatic concrete wall around the United States by imposing arbitrary tariffs on our trading partners, by weakening our commitment to and engagement with NATO allies and the World Health Organization, and by pulling out of our treaty obligations with Mexico, Canada, and Iran.Trump placed young immigrant children in tightly confined cages, separating them from their dear parents and scarring them for life.He has symbolically positioned the U.S. in a cage by divorcing us from the Paris Climate Accords and by shutting his mind even to the possibility of human-related climate change.His administration has locked out qualified trans personnel from military service, and entered a legal brief to the Supreme Court in attempting to prevent sexual orientation and gender identity from categories protected against employment discriminationHe continually places access barriers around the Constitution and particularly the First Amendments free speech clause, rights to assembly, and redress of grievances by attacking, lying to, and restricting the media, peaceful demonstrators, law firms, and universities.Trump supports impediments to the voting booth with measures like gerrymandering and other suppression campaigns by reducing the number of polling stations in primarily minoritized racial communities, by opposing mail-in voting, and by limiting days and times for pre-election-day voting.If his unqualified support for Republican attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act eventually succeeds, an estimated 30 million lower-income people will find themselves surrounded by impenetrable obstacles to quality healthcare. Trumps incarnation of Nixon and Reagans law and order refrain can be translated as let us lock up more people, and particularly people of color, behind high walls and razor wire, as we have witnessed time and time again in his Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and by his National Guard troops on U.S. streets.His administration has locked out qualified trans personnel from military service, and entered a legal brief to the Supreme Court in attempting to prevent sexual orientation and gender identity from categories protected against employment discrimination, as interpreted under sex in Title VII of the Civil Rights Law of 1964.Donald Trump has dedicated his entire life to erecting walls so he can divide and conquer, to win for himself at any cost to his now non-existent sense of dignity, integrity, and empathy.Trump and his administration have worked with the Supreme Court to toss Dreamers over onto the south side of the border, by reversing former President Barack Obamas executive order under the DACA program.Donald Trump cares nothing about physical or symbolic barriers effectiveness or cost because he constructed the idea of a wall as political bait in the minds of the electorate to rile and hook people into supporting him. In this way, he sufficiently distinguished himself in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential campaigns.Though the U.S. border with Canada is literally twice the length as that with Mexico, and several suspected and known terrorists infiltrated down from the north, Trumps total focus has been to stop supposed terrorists, drug and human traffickers, criminals, gang members, and illegal aliens from the south. Trump is well-versed in the notion of walls (in all their guises)Donald Trump gives a speech at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, Wisconsin on Saturday, September 7, 2024. | Gabi Broekema/USA TODAY NETWORK- Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORKTrumps familys wealth and privilege walled him off from having to serve in the U.S. military during a mandatory draft. He and his father lost a lawsuit charging them with racial discrimination by locking out people of color from renting and purchasing apartments in their properties.Donald Trump, arguably the more prominent of the so-called birthers, attempted to wall off President Barack Obama by continually arguing that he was born outside the United States, even well after President Obama released his official birth certificate. This along with Trumps supposed investigations into Mr. Obamas time spent in Indonesia as a child and inquiries into his African roots on his fathers side coexist as not-so-veiled xenophobic and racist rants.Throughout his runs for the White House, Trump has threatened to restrict the access of all Muslims into the United States.Donald Trump has dedicated his entire life to erecting walls so he can divide and conquer, to win for himself at any cost to his now non-existent sense of dignity, integrity, and empathy.He has assembled a self-imposed blockade to keep out information, facts, and truth.The only things permeating his self-described artistically-designed steel slats embedded in the reinforced concrete of his border wall are feelings and conclusions that he reaches by gut intuition alone. Walls break down. So do controlling regimes.The Chinese constructed, repaired, reconstructed, and extended their Great Wall for over 2,000 years. It ultimately reached the length of 3,700 miles by the end of the 17thcentury, after which it eroded to its current state of decay. With all the effort and expenditure of resources going into the Wall, it never functioned as it was meant to since enemies of the great Chinese dynasties found ways of breaching this intended grand barricade.Though the Soviets fortified their Berlin Wall with armed guards who shot anyone attempting to scale its heights in either direction. An estimated 5,000 people, nonetheless, escaped its confinement between its construction in August 1961 to its demolition in early November 1989.The Soviets did not keep detailed records, but estimates range from 136 people shot by guards to upwards of 240 killed in shootings, accidental falls, and in suicides following failed attempts at escape through the Berlin Wall.Trumps attempts to construct 15th-century barrier technology, which did not work even in the 15thcentury, will certainly drain and waste valuable resources that could be used effectively for other national projects, such as rebuilding and replacing the nations crumbling infrastructure.The word bridge, however, is simply not in Trumps meager vocabulary.Sigmund Freud once quipped that Sometime a cigar is just a cigar. Well, to Trump, usually a wall is much more than just a wall.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.