Mind you, I’m disposed to think that we need a wall. Or a fence. But it isn’t the biggest ­immigration issue out there. What is more important is our crazy legal-immigration system.

Unlike other countries, we don’t select immigrants on the basis of whether they would make life better for Americans. If backing merit-based immigration is right wing, then call the Canadians right wing, because that is how they choose newcomers.

But good arguments don’t matter when you can’t make the sale. The RAISE Act, a merit-based ­immigration bill introduced in 2017 by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue, never got off the ground, and a new Rasmussen poll suggests most Americans want Trump to yield on the wall. He lost the independent voters in the November congressional elections, and now he’s lost them over the shutdown.

November should have sent him the message that we wanted him to chill. We are getting tired of the drama. Instead, Trump doubled down. It’s time to reverse course.