A GoFundMe campaign to raise money to build a wall along the southern border has raised $15 million in the last six days. “We the People Will Fund the Wall” is the brainchild of Brian Kolfage, a triple-amputee veteran and conservative activist. The goal of the campaign is to raise $1 billion toward construction.
Meanwhile, a counter-campaign to raise money to buy ladders to go over the wall was started on Wednesday by a transgender liberal columnist. Army veteran Charlotte Clymer’s effort has raised $137,000 of a $100 million goal.
The sting for conservatives was deepened by an announcement on Tuesday that the US will increase aid to Mexico and Central America to $10.6billion.
Democrats mocked the GoFundMe as evidence of Trump supporters’ gullibility, gloating that federal funding for Trump’s signature proposal is looking increasingly less likely.
‘It’s up to Americans to help out and pitch in to get this project rolling,’ the page reads. ‘If the 63million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.’
The fundraising page says it has contacted the Trump Administration to secure a point of contact where all the funds will go, but adds it has ‘many very high level contacts already helping’.
The page says further: ‘As a veteran who has given so much, 3 limbs, I feel deeply invested to this nation to ensure future generations have everything we have today,’ while elaborating on Kolfage’s history as a Purple Heart Medal recipient.
The married father-of-two lost both legs and his right arm in a 2004 insurgent attack in Iraq.
It’s not clear how money raised by private sources could be earmarked for a specific government project. Citizens are able to donate money to the U.S. Treasury but not to individual departments like Homeland Security. Kolfage says he’s been in touch with the White House about how the transfer of funds would work, but hasn’t gotten a response yet.
Obviously, the effort won’t even come close to raising $1 billion. But that’s not the point. More than 266,000 people have donated to the campaign. That’s a sizable number of people showing support for a project that most politicians don’t think has much public backing.
Democrats are rock solid in their opposition to funding a wall, and for good reason. Their rabid, frothing base would go ballistic on any Democrat who voted for it. With the radical left on the rise in the Democratic Party, going against them holds unknown perils for any politician.
Trump won’t get $5 billion for a wall, but anything he gets for “border security” will be a bonus and he will declare victory. That’s probably the only way that those agencies shut down for lack of funding will begin operations again.
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