I wonder if he is using this wall to create controversy and accomplish something else while no one is looking.
Just Russian collusion. Remember when all of the indictments started landing last month, and I said something like "what crazy thing will Trump do next to suck up all of the media coverage and distract people from these new revelations?" Well, this is it.
I wonder if he is creating enough disgruntlement on the democrats side so that they don't go for the wall but agree on something else that he really wants
I think a big part of it is not getting something specific that he wants, it's preventing the incoming congressional majority from announcing or executing any of their legislative priorities. Pelosi had all of these plans for subpoenas, his tax returns, protecting the Mueller investigation, ethics reforms, and campaign finance and voting rights protections. Instead, they are doing absolutely nothing with their majority except arguing with Trump about a useless border wall.
BTW, I met an ex-border patrol officer yesterday who believes a wall is necessary
Walls are totally necessary, in some places! We already have hundreds of miles of walls, mostly in urban areas and their surroundings, where it would be easy to drive a cargo truck full of drugs across the border. We funnel people into checkpoints using walls.
But a wall in the desert makes no sense. Very few people cross there anyway, and the ones that do can't drive across the desert for more than a few miles before they hit a real road, and that's where all of the manned border checkpoints already exist.
Better fencing than what we have now is probably a good idea.
It won't help. There is always some other way to enter the country, including legally by just buying a plane ticket, which is how most illegal immigrants came to American anyway.
If you want to reduce illegal immigration in America, you need to remove the incentive for people to come here seeking work. Enforce e-verify for everyone, and penalize employers who break that law with heavy fines used to pay for the enforcement. Boom, illegal immigration just dropped by 75% without building a single foot of wall or spending a single new dollar. Accept that agricultural prices will rise as a result.
But as we've previously discussed, republicans don't actually want to reduce immigrant labor because republican-owned businesses depend on it. They only use this issue as a dog-whistle for American racists, a way to subtly signal "hey I hate brown people too, vote for me!" without coming out and saying as much in a way that would alienate anti-racist voters. If they actually wanted to reduce illegal immigration, a wall is not the way to do it.
This whole shutdown debate is just more Apprentice style reality tv, a carefully crafted made-for-tv narrative starring a made-for-tv president. The drama is fake, the conflict is fake, the solutions are fake, and most of the characters are fake. Its real purpose is to convince gullible tv watchers to vote one way or the other in the coming election by portraying their chosen stars or villains in a particular light, and to control the story arc so that democrats can't pursue any of their own legislative priorities.