Republican elected officials are blaming the Biden administration for a seasonal influx of migrants at the southern border, and many of them are still clinging to former President Donald Trump's campaign promise of a giant wall as a solution to unauthorized border crossings.
Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott announced this week that he'd be releasing a crowdfunding effort to build the wall in his state.
Abbott said on the Ruth Less podcast:
"When I do make the announcement later on this week, I will also be providing a link that you can click on and go to for everybody in the United States — really everybody in the entire world — who wants to help Texas build the border wall, there will be a place on there where they can contribute."
The Governor painted a rosy picture of the effort, but others remembered a similar campaign that ended in disaster.
Avowed white nationalist and former Trump official Steve Bannon was arrested on his yacht last year after officials discovered that portions of the $25 million raised for his online funding effort, We Build the Wall, went toward personal expenses.
Bannon was eventually pardoned by his former boss, Trump, in the last days of his administration.
With Trump no longer in office, Abbott won't have that same hope if the funds generated from donations go misused.
People thought the effort reeked of Bannon.
It's curious that Abbott, Bannon, or anyone is eager to crowdfund border wall funds, considering that Trump long-promised Mexico would pay for the chimeric undertaking.
Abbott's comments come as a heat wave threatens the Lone Star State's independent power grid, potentially resulting in widespread outages like the ones seen earlier this year.
