Nearly a quarter of Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 now say they regret their vote.
When those voters are asked what changed their minds, the answers vary: the war in Iran, the economy, and, perhaps most notably, broken promises. There are plenty to choose from.
Broken promises practically litter the boulevard of broken dreams known as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
There was the promise of no new wars. That one now comes with a price tag of more than $37 billion for the conflict with Iran alone.
There was the promise that ICE would target the “worst of the worst.” Instead, more than 170 American citizens have reportedly been detained without due process, multiple Americans have been shot and killed in broad daylight by ICE agents, and data shows that more than 73 percent of people detained by ICE have no criminal conviction.
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Most notably, there was the promise to lower costs for working families. Not only has Trump failed to deliver on that promise, his administration has pursued policies that have made everyday expenses even harder to manage, including tariffs that raise the cost of imported goods and healthcare cuts that have left some families facing dramatically higher monthly premiums.
There was another promise, one considerably less consequential than war or due process but apparently just as disposable: Make America Beautiful Again.
Last year, Republicans in Congress passed a bill that handed trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the ultra wealthy. That same legislation, which Trump proudly dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” included $46.5 billion for “border infrastructure,” including the construction of new barriers along the southern border. Nearly a decade after Trump first promised to build a wall along the southern border, the wall still has not been built. And Mexico, in case anyone was wondering, still isn’t paying for it.
Mexico not paying for the wall is pretty easy to explain. In what world would Mexico ever agree to pay billions of dollars to build a wall for another country?
What is much harder to explain is why the Trump administration has decided to spend more than a billion dollars building that wall in the place where it appears to be needed the least.
Surprisingly, the amount of money appropriated for this project is not even the stupidest part. It gets much dumber.
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The Trump administration has begun construction of the border wall along the southern border in the Big Bend Sector of Texas.
Big Bend gets its name from the sweeping bend of the Rio Grande around the Chisos Mountains before the river continues east toward the Gulf of Mexico. The region includes three major canyons, Santa Elena, Mariscal, and Boquillas, as well as the 801,000 acre Big Bend National Park, established in 1944 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
If you have never visited Big Bend, or even seen pictures of it, it may be difficult to understand just how ridiculous building a wall here actually is.
So I’ll put it simply:
The landscape itself is a barrier: cliffs, desert, mountains, canyons, extreme heat, snakes, and some of the roughest terrain along the entire southern border.
Which helps explain why only 1.3 percent of all apprehensions along the southern border occurred in the Big Bend Sector.
TAKE ACTION - STOP THE BIG BEND WALL
If you’re faint of heart and don’t appreciate expletives of passion, I’ll rephrase it the way my friend and Senate candidate James Talarico would: God already built a wall there.
Despite all of that, the Department of Homeland Security has now awarded the largest border wall related contract in Texas history, worth $1.7 billion, to build a wall in the place where both the data and the landscape suggest it is needed the least.
Apparently this story needed one more layer of “you have got to be kidding me.” The company getting paid to build the wall also happens to have some very convenient political connections. Barnard Construction, the Montana firm awarded nearly $2 billion in contracts tied to the Big Bend region, is headed by Tim Barnard, whose family and company leadership have contributed more than $1 million to Trump aligned political committees. Barnard and his wife alone donated $1 million to a Trump joint fundraising committee and political action committee in 2024.
Since Trump returned to office, Barnard Construction and its affiliates have received more than $5.6 billion in border construction contracts. I’m sure that is all completely unrelated and just one of those funny little coincidences Washington is famous for.
The plans currently outlined, which have already changed multiple times in response to public pressure and bipartisan outrage, includes more than 200 miles of new roads and, in some places, a physical wall reaching 30 feet high.
Considering how much of a big, whiny fucking deal Trump has made about this damn wall for the last ten years, you would think the administration would at least want to build it somewhere the data actually supports the argument for having one. You know, somewhere people are actually crossing the border at scale.
Instead, the administration managed to identify one of the most naturally fortified stretches of the entire southern border and essentially say: You know what this canyon needs? A $1.7 billion wall.
The choice to construct the wall here is wildly unpopular among the people who actually know the region, especially for people who understand and appreciate the natural beauty and biodiversity that big bend encompasses. It’s home to desert ecosystems, mountain habitats, wildlife corridors, the Rio Grande, and some of the darkest skies in North America.
Big Bend’s minimal light pollution makes it one of the country’s premier places for viewing the Milky Way, constellations, and a night sky that millions of Americans living near cities rarely get to see.
But don’t worry. I’m sure installing a “smart wall” packed with surveillance technology, infrastructure, roads, lighting, and construction equipment will have absolutely no effect on that whatsoever.
She said, extremely sarcastically.
If potentially damaging one of America’s clearest night skies were not enough, the administration has also waived major environmental protections to accelerate construction.
That means the project can move forward without the kind of environmental review normally required to determine what construction of this scale could do to the land, wildlife, and water systems surrounding it.
The Rio Grande is already under enormous pressure from drought and low water levels. Construction in this remote terrain requires water, roads, heavy equipment, and significant disruption to the surrounding environment.
TAKE ACTION - STOP THE BIG BEND WALL
Of course, it would not be a truly terrible Trump administration decision unless it also hurts people and damages the local economy. They are not just screwing with nature. They are screwing with the people who come to enjoy it, and with the communities that depend on those visitors to make a living.
Big Bend is an economic engine for the surrounding region. The people who travel there to hike, camp, and take in the landscape spend money in the nearby communities, generating roughly $56.8 million in economic activity last year.
That is what makes the contradiction so hard to ignore. The very beauty that sustains these communities is the same beauty this administration is willing to disrupt.
Trump promised to “Make America Beautiful Again,” and now his administration is preparing to spend billions of dollars disrupting one of the most beautiful places in the country.
That is especially ironic considering Trump’s own executive order establishing the Make America Beautiful Again Commission calls for “commonsense policies” that “preserve its natural beauty” and “protect our Nation’s outdoor heritage.”
Apparently, Big Bend is the exception.
It is almost impressive how they managed to create a project that is more expensive, less necessary, and uglier all at the same time.
Which leaves one obvious question: how do they justify it?
TAKE ACTION - STOP THE BIG BEND WALL
If you want to change the behavior of someone whose politics revolve around power and appearance, you have to understand what threatens those things. In Trump’s case, that means understanding where he is most susceptible to public pressure.
There is a line from George Orwell’s 1984 that I think about often: “The object of power is power.”
People who seek power generally intend to keep it. In an increasingly visual and hyperconnected society, keeping power means maintaining the perception that you are strong, competent, and in control.
Which is why, over the years, I have come to believe that Trump’s greatest weakness is the perception of weakness itself.
If power depends on looking strong and competent, then one of the easiest ways to expose weakness is to keep forcing someone to explain a decision that makes absolutely no sense. Which is why one of the most effective things people can do is keep asking Trump and his party the same question over and over again:
Why are taxpayers spending $1.7 billion to build a wall where mountains, cliffs, desert, and the Rio Grande already did most of the job for free? Or, even simpler: Why here?
And there is one more question worth asking:
Why are you paying for the wall while Trump’s donors get paid to build it?
Sometimes bad political decisions survive simply because they are complicated enough, boring enough, or buried beneath enough bureaucracy that nobody bothers to pay attention.
This one is not.
So below, I’m including a few quick actions you can take to oppose the project. None of them require much time.
If you do nothing else, share the story. Post about it. Talk about it. Make people ask the question this administration should have to answer over and over again: Why here?
TAKE ACTION - STOP THE BIG BEND WALL
An administration that promised to “Make America Beautiful Again” should have to explain why it is spending billions of taxpayer dollars to make one of the most beautiful places in America uglier, and more importantly, why you are the one being forced to pay for it.
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