Hey, a post that delved into the geopolitical implications of the issue instead of obsessing about the writer's hairstyle. I salute you, sir.
You are absolutely correct. Nothing remotely like this would happen in Europe. For all of its frustrations and messiness, our American republic is unique. The elites in this country, of both parties, DO NOT want this wall. But average Americans have made it abundantly clear that they do. They have won this round, as they win every round they really put their minds to. The wall will be approved, and funded, and built, because too many people are awake to the issue, energized and ready to hold the government's feet to the fire.
That sort of grassroots energy is the quintessential expression of American democracy. Our political system is messy, ugly, frustrating and unwieldy. But 230-odd years on, it is still responsive to the will of the people, and the people, for all their dissatisfaction with everyday politics, know if enough people agree on an issue and make their will known, positive change is probable, if not certain.
Nativism is unjustly reviled. To be sure, it often reflects bigotry, but bigotry is sometimes the correct response. It was bigotry that laid the foundation of the Republican Party. It was not sweet reason but fear and hatred of the Slave Power that brought Abraham Lincoln out of private practice into the public arena. It was fear and hatred of Communism, albeit also of Jews and Catholics, that limited European immigration into the United States after the WWI. That the policy was unjust to many does not mean that it was unwise. Immagine a United States facing the Great Depression while harboring an addition 10 million unassimilated immigrants. Down the memory well has gone the rallies of the radicals in New York and Chicago. Hoover's fear of insurrection was not unfounded. Immigration policy gave the United States twenty years to absorb many cultures, and to cut millions off from the perniciuous influences of Europe. Hollywood movies famously filled combat squads with every European ethnic group under the sun, and the truth was that these Swedes, Poles, Italians et al. had grown up American in a way they could not if their enclaves had been constantly refilled by newcomers. I doubt that we have the ability to keep out the Latinos who was flooding our borders, but the missage has to be got out that when they cross that inviosible line on the map they are moving into a foreigh country to which they must adapt.