The Trump wall as a piece of symbolism?

in #trump5 years ago


In my view the most unfortunate take on the border wall is to say the following:

  • It's just symbolic.
  • It's only $5 billion, which isn't much.

ergo

  • Let's let Trump have the wall, possibly in exchange for something else we want.

Here's the problem: At least at some point, symbols really do matter.

If you doubt this, please ask yourself the following question: Would you accept spending $5 billion of taxpayers' money to subsidise white robes for underprivileged Klansmen? Would you accept the subsidy as part of a deal to get some other thing that you really wanted? Would you say "Eh, the robes are just symbolic, the robes never killed anyone?"

Probably not. You'd probably fight that.

You might want to say that my example is not "really" symbolic in some way, but I'm afraid I'd just laugh at that. Of course robes are just symbolic. Of course they never killed anyone. But that's not the issue.

Or you might want to distinguish between the symbolic content of my hypothetical and the symbolic content of the wall. You might want to claim that they symbolise fundamentally different things.

That's more plausible, but by now the argument has moved on: We're not talking about whether the wall is a piece of symbolism. We're talking about what the wall means as a piece of symbolism, and whether the content of that symbol matters sufficiently to vote against it.

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