Since Mexico and Congress won’t pay for Trump’s wall, supporters are crowdfunding it

After months of jokes about it being the only way to fund Trump’s border wall, someone has actually made a GoFundMe to pay for the wall.

No, this is not The Onion. This is real life.

As of this writing, the crowdfunding campaign has raised over $4.8 million in just three short days of existence. That sounds extremely impressive because it is extremely impressive. That’s an extremely large amount of money to raise in just a few short days. There’s just one problem, though.

According to a leaked report, the wall will cost approximately $22 billion (with a “B”) to build. So as it stands right now, the GoFundme campaign has raised approximately 0.02% of the total amount needed to build the entire wall.

Congratulations.

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The campaign was made by Brian Kolfage, who puts your doubt at ease by telling you why you should trust him with millions of dollars on the page:

I have a verified blue check facebook page as a public figure and I’m a Purple Heart Recipient triple amputee veteran.

I also have a blue verified Facebook page with nearly a million followers, and *I* would not trust *me* with millions of dollars.

Brian continued:

Like a  majority of those American citizens who voted to elect President Donald J Trump, we voted for him to Make America Great Again. President Trump’s main campaign promise was to BUILD THE WALL.

For one, a majority voted for Hillary, not Donald. Secondly, you’re only giving us a half-truth here. His main campaign promise was to “build the wall, and make Mexico pay for it.” Not “build the wall, and hope that Brian makes a successful crowdfunding campaign to help us bring together enough pennies for it.”

So let’s recap: First Mexico was going to pay for the wall. Then Mexico was going to pay us back. Now Congress needs to pay for it. But then, the new NAFTA agreement will essentially mean that Mexico is paying for it. Now people are trying to crowdfund it as our president threatens to shut down the federal government.

I thought conservatives wanted to pay less taxes? I’m just really, really confused by this whole thing.

Brian then includes this weird statement that I stopped trying to make sense of because I felt as though I was about to have a stroke:

“If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.” That equates to roughly 5Billion Dollars, even if we get half, that’s half the wall. We can do this.

You’re gonna need $22 billion for it, buddy.

He’s also selling merch for the campaign, as VICE pointed out:

He’s also selling “Fund The Wall” merch: coffee mugs, shirts, and water bottles that people can buy to support a wall that Congress — and most Ameeicans [sic] — have rejected. Kramer said he was inspired to start the campaign due to his fury over the opioid crisis, which he blamed on drug smuggling from south of the border. (Experts have long said that the opioid crisis has origins in the U.S. healthcare system, which overprescribed drugs to working-class Americans.)

Ahem. You should buy my merch, not his. Just sayin’.

They’re just… So close to getting the answer right here.

There’s outrage over the opioid crisis – a very real issue affecting millions of Americans both directly and indirectly. I saw the effects of this directly when I worked for child protective services in Indiana, and I’ve experienced the ripple effects when you lose a family member to opioids.

But a wall won’t help anything.

At best, it’s putting a bandaid on the problem. A true solution to this would be multifaceted, including revamping how we look at healthcare, and reducing barriers to receiving mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, and more. At worst, it’s diverting resources that could have been used more effectively to save lives.

Also, in a time when we’re supposed to be thinking of others, and donating to worthy causes… This is what many conservatives think is important. They’d rather throw millions of dollars at a non-issue than throw millions of dollars towards wounded veterans or Toys for Tots. Hell, you could even donate to help put coats on kids who need them.

But no, instead we’ll put that money towards 0.02% of a wall. Because that’s how to demonstrate your Conservative Values™.

Alternatively, the group ‘Ladders for Migrant Siblings’ created their own crowdfunding campaign they titled “Ladders to Get Over Trump’s Wall.”

The campaign was made as a direct response to Brians, and points out the futility of it all:

And even though at a rate of $1.7 million daily, it would take their fund about 35 years to raise the$21.7 billion that Trump’s own Dept. of Homeland Security says would be needed  to build said wall, we wanna make sure ladders are ready to send over to our undocumented friends and help them.

If this seems ludicrous, we welcome you to the coalition of reasonable adults.

With a goal of $100 million, Ladders to Get Over Trump’s Wall is unlikely to meet its goal. They have a plan, though:

Should we not reach our goal–or should they (ahem) not reach theirs–all funds raised will go to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) , a Texas-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency that promotes justice by providing free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees.

Well played, and certainly a more worthwhile effort.