【White Skin Black Thighs】

President Trump has so far failed to secure funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border,White Skin Black Thighs so now his most ardent supporters are trying to pay for it themselves.

Earlier this week, a GoFundMe campaign that aims to raise one billion dollarsto, well, build that wall was launched. As of Thursday morning the campaign had raised $3.2 million dollars. That is, of course, far short of both the $1 billion goal and the amount Trump wanted for the wall ($5 billion) before he initially abandoned it in a fight with Democrats over a deal to avoid a partial government shutdown (Trump has since decided he won't sign any funding bill without money for the wall.)

But it's still an impressive sum in a short amount of time.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The campaign is the work of Brian Kolfage, a triple-amputee veteran who was awarded the Purple Heart for his service during the Iraq War. Speaking to the Washington Post, Kolfage said it arose out of his frustration over the partisan bickering about funding the wall. “It’s time to stop playing games with voters,” Kolfage said. “If we are told we’re getting something, make it happen.”

Kolfage's effort to use crowdsourcing to circumvent government inefficiency is, in theory, a laudable idea. But the logic he's using to support this campaign is less sound. On the campaign's page, Kolfage includes the unsourced quote, “If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.” While that math checks out, it goes completely against the reason so many people supported Trump's idea for the wall in the first place: because, as Trump crowed on the campaign trail, he'd make Mexico pay for it.

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

And, yet, here are American taxpayers sinking their own money to complete a campaign promise that the candidate they backed, a self-proclaimed skilled negotiator, can't get done on his own.

Second, Kolfage declares, "The government has accepted large private donations before, most recently a billionaire donated $7.5 Million to fund half of the Washington Monument repairs in 2012; this is no different."

That's true, but the claim that funding the wall is "no different" is far more subjective. Setting aside the astronomical difference in the actual amounts, the monument was made for repairs to a public structure that few would have refused.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Meanwhile, the border wall is an incredibly divisive political issue that's brought into sharp focus America's internal debate about what our country's policy on asylum should be. This is, in fact, much, much different than a rich guy donating his own money to repair a monument to our generally beloved first president.

That won't stop people from donating to this GoFundMe, of course. In the time it took me to write this story, over $100,000 had been added to the total. The amount will fall short, of course, as that's such a staggering amount to raise in $50 or $100 increments. Regardless of the finally total, though, this funding will do nothing to settle the debate over whether we should build this wall.

UPDATE: Dec. 20, 2018, 1:58 p.m. EST Updated to reflect Trump's decision to not sign a funding bill without border wall money.

---

Featured Video For You

---

2018 was the year of the youth activist

---

• Shopping
• Digital Culture
• Tech
• Deals
• Games
• Life
• Entertainment
• Science

• The Silent Treatment
• Analyst fires back after Elon Musk shut him down in Tesla earnings call
• A chance alignment at a soccer match gave us the hero we deserve
• 'Guardians of the Galaxy' director says a big Easter egg still hasn't been found
• International Man of Monocracy
• Google tries to burst filter bubbles with redesigned 'News' app
• Scientists watched a North Korean mountain move after a nuclear blast
• People are still naming their kids after 'Game of Thrones' characters
• Us vs. Him
• Signal update means disappearing messages no longer remain on MacOS

• Eliminating toxic masculinity should be on every parent's to
• 'Game of Thrones' Season 8 will have multiple 80
• Goat mayor celebrates first day in power by taking a dump on the floor
• These parody videos of a recording engineer responding to rappers are solid gold
• Verizon's 5G network launches in Chicago and Minneapolis on April 14
• The ocean keeps gulping massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the air
• Facebook loses two important executives amid new privacy push
• Teen eggs Australian official after racist reaction to Christchurch
• Snapchat reportedly announcing new gaming platform in April
• Apple might add third rear camera to this year's 'iPhone 11'

• A Coalition Government of the Heart
• After the redesign, Snapchat user satisfaction hit an all
• Deadpool is really angry Canada didn't get invited to Eurovision
• Instagram introduces interactive emoji slider poll for stories
• The Miseducation of <i>Lady Bird</i>
• iOS 11.4 will lock down the iPhone's Lightning port if it isn't used
• Horrific 'teeth nails' have been added to the list of outrageous nail trends
• Congress released more than 3,000 Russian Facebook ads
• Projections of Melania
• Review: BitDefender Box 2 is a Wi

• Over Our Heads
• Beyoncé re
• A chance alignment at a soccer match gave us the hero we deserve
• Google's new tool lets anyone turn Street View images into VR 'tours'
• The Secret Policeman at the Marathon
• 'Destiny 2's newest raid, Spire of Stars, is proving difficult
• Forget Windows PCs. Microsoft wants to power everything.
• Uber partners with U.S. Army, NASA to develop flying taxis
• Alliance Against Progress
• 'Black dot of death' Unicode bug can crash Messages on iPhone