It's mind-boggling to me how fake the border is. One of the central political footballs of US domestic politics for... I don't even know how long. As long as I've been alive. All the sweat, all the ink spilled, the dems constantly tacking rightwards on the issue, the untold millions of people immiserated, news cycles yammering about it endlessly. And for what? Just naked racism? Who does a "strong border" benefit, exactly? What does it even mean? Some other political bullshit, like being "Tough on Crime" or the "War on Drugs" I can see the twisted logic where you could convince regular Americans that those things were good for them. The only cogent logic I've ever heard about the border is that, apparently, back when Labor was strong they wanted strict controls on the border and immigration because they feared employers would replace them with slaves. Not that I agree with that, but I can see a logic at work there.

I suppose I could see where somebody who doesn't know that cartels aren't real could buy that the intersection of the war on drugs and the southern border represents some legitimate threat to their safety. But I'm pretty sure I read once that most drugs come in on boats and planes and commercial trucks (and is being done so at the behest of state apparatuses i.e. CIA, cops, DEA, etc.).

I could see where, if you gave a shit about illegal border crossers and lived in a border state then that would be a humanitarian crisis, but that's never what the news or the politicos are talking about when they talk about the border.

It's like in America we talk in a nonsense language about made up bullshit that then translates into the mass deprivation of huge swathes of humanity. Of course most of the common political talking points in this country are bullshit, but the border in particular seems almost entirely abstract in terms of the rhetoric surrounding it.