If Trump signs off on the deal, he gets far less border wall funding than he initially demanded, in the immediate, but he wins critical credibility for the Republicans’ unsubstantiated and false claims of a border security crisis. Worse, by conceding to the wall in any form, Democrats have yielded to a monument of a violent, racist ideology. “The just-below-the-surface message is this,” wrote CNN’s Chris Cillizza about Trump’s “dog whistle” rhetoric on immigration and the border. “White people made this country great. Brown people are flooding in.”…

Not only have Democrats betrayed part of their base politically, they have also agreed to additional wall construction in the heavily populated Rio Grande Valley, a Latino majority Democratic stronghold some 700 miles down the border from El Paso. Many Texas Latinos that I know have some connection to the valley and the region represents a center of cultural identity and historical richness, where ranching traditions and familial roots predate the border.