Months ago, I joked that Americans should crowdfund a border Wall, if Congress wouldn’t fund it. I proposed (and I still think this part’s a good idea) that you could offer citizens the chance to have their names on individual bricks, or sections, of such a Wall. Imagine taking your grandkids down to the border, in a secure country with decent working class wages and plenty of Red states, and showing them the section of their future you helped secure. … It would be a much more cheerful version of the Vietnam Memorial. 

Well, I meant that suggestion rhetorically, but now the fecklessness of Congress has driven Americans to try it. As USA TODAY reports:

A GoFundMe campaign received more than $6 million in contributions for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border – but merely raising the money isn’t enough to ensure that it can be used for President Donald Trump’s long-touted goal.

The campaign, “We The People Will Fund The Wall,” was started by veteran Brian Kolfage, a Purple Heart recipient and triple amputee who lives in Florida.

“As a veteran who has given so much, 3 limbs, I feel deeply invested to this nation to ensure future generations have everything we have today,” Kolfage wrote on the campaign’s page. Kolfage, tired of inaction on the wall, started the campaign Sunday and began promoting it Monday.

Predictably, a leftist journalist has approached GoFundMe about shutting the campaign down. The fascist impulse runs deep on the left, and is never far from the surface. GoFundMe has a disgraceful track record, along with other sites such as Patreon, of booting off conservatives. That’s why I send people instead to FundingMorality. It’s run by orthodox Jews who support the same moral causes we do. That’s where I steered Mark Judge, and he raised more than $100,000 to pay his legal bills as a driveby victim of the Kavanaugh hearings. Please use it instead of left-biased platforms like GoFundMe.

It Probably Won’t Work

Now, there’s a serious down side to the crowdsourcing idea. For one thing, it’s vulnerable to pressure. The campaign could raise every penny of the $5 billion to fund the Wall, and GoFundMe’s honchos could pull the plug. The donors would have no recourse. 

The whole reason so many squishy, worthless justices ended up appointed to the Supreme Court by Republicans? That phony filibuster.

Worst of all, even if they raised all the money and offered it to Congress, the Democrats could simply turn it down. Or worst of all, take it and squander it on some leftist boondoggle instead. (Free sex changes in Christian hospitals for illegal aliens … more “refugees” from Somalia…) There’s literally no way to keep legislators honest in such a case.

Build the Wall the Constitutional Way

No, there’s a better way. A constitutional way, which honors American traditions. Now that President Trump has stood firm on shutting down the government if it can’t do its job by guarding the border, the House has passed a funding bill that includes the cash for the Wall. We have a majority in the Senate, and could pass it easily. Just one thing stands in the way.

That’s the fake procedural “filibuster.” Recall what a real filibuster was: A senator making use of the venerable tradition of unlimited debate to make a very long speech opposing a bill. That holds up all Senate business, and requires a two-thirds cloture vote to end debate. In the 1970s, senators created a loophole, which bound the Senate to pretend that a simple notice from any senator amounted to a filibuster on one given bill. No need for speeches, no holding up Senate business. That cheap procedural trick made two-thirds supermajorities mandatory for all judicial appointments and legislation. Harry Reid abolished it for judges, which backfired for Democrats but was constitutionally sound. If our Founders had wanted to require a supermajority for every nomination, they would have written the Constitution that way. They didn’t, for very good reason.

The whole reason so many squishy, worthless justices ended up appointed to the Supreme Court by Republicans? That phony filibuster. If the Democrats hadn’t nuked it, we wouldn’t have Neil Gorsuch or Brett Kavanaugh.

You Can Have a Country, or the Fake Filibuster. Pick One.

Now if the Senate doesn’t nuke the legislative fake filibuster, we won’t have a Wall. We’ll have an endless influx of more new Democrat voters, and soon it will be impossible to elect a Republican president ever again. Or Republican senators for that matter. We will live in a one-party country. And the moment it suits them, the Democrats will repeal the filibuster, so the GOP rump can’t obstruct its march toward a Venezuelan future.

What’s more, disgruntled patriotic voters will likely stay home in 2020, convinced that nothing they do makes any difference. The game is rigged against them.

Those are the stake facing the U.S. Senate now. At least one GOP senator gets it:

House just passed a bill that fully funds government and enables @realDonaldTrump to secure our border/build the wall. Senate can do same by eliminating the filibuster. 51 votes, same as we do for judges!

— Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) December 21, 2018

This is an historic moment. As I wrote on Twitter:

Okay @SenateGOP. You can have a border wall, and a limit to the influx of new Democrat voters into every state, and national sovereignty, and a shot at winning 2020. Or you can keep the procedural filibuster. Pick one.

— John Zmirak (@JZmirak) December 21, 2018

Mitch McConnell has to pick one. Let your senator know which one is more important to you.

UPDATE: This morning, President Trump echoed Sen. Daines’ sentiment:

Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2018