Potential problems: for instance, the size of the doorknob.
When Trump first began to talk about a great wall to prevent Mexicans from sneaking across our border into Texas, I thought he was speaking figuratively, as in, “The police are a bulwark (wall) against crime.” In that example, it is obvious the speaker is not referring to police standing up against criminals by standing very close to each other and locking arms. Similarly, the “thin red line” which, according to the blurb on the novel of that name “…divides the sane from the mad and the living from the dead” is not a line drawing but a metaphorical way of referring to a brave company of marines who fought in the Pacific war against the Japanese. James Jones, the author, would have been put out by any more literal interpretation. Such use of metaphor is common. Similarly, Trump might well have been referring to a complicated series of questionnaires and other paper work which by their very complexity would deter anyone trying to immigrate from Mexico—or he could have been thinking of a row of trenches, or the careful emplacement of machine guns, either of which might have made a kind of sense. But no, it turned out he was talking about an actual wall, like the Great Wall of China.
There are reasons to think such a wall might be impractical—shortages of cement, problems with eminent domain, an unwillingness for poor workers (i.e. Mexicans) to work on such a wall, etc. There is also the possibility, some people have suggested, that Mexico would be unwilling to foot the bill for such a large expense, even given their desire to avoid angering a President Trump who by force of character alone would otherwise command their obedience. There are numerous other obstacles—deserts and rivers, for example—which I will not bother to list.
Trump made a further announcement. In order not to appear too stiff-necked and, perhaps, anti-Mexican, despite his expressed admiration for the Mexican people, only some of whom are drug dealers and rapists, Trump has announced that he will set into this wall, somewhere around the middle, a “big, very beautiful door” through which the “good people” of Mexico (there are such) will be allowed into the country. One might think, not knowing any better, that Trump is referring to some legal method for Mexican immigration, but the reality, as we have come to see, is that Trump is planning to erect a huge door in the middle of his huge wall where Mexicans can walk into this country in groups instead of single file.
Assuming a wall at least forty feet high (in order not to be defeated by some intrepid Mexican with a ladder), it is reasonable to expect that the door will be at least thirty feet high—and twenty or thirty feet wide. This would be a very big door. In order for it to be “beautiful,” like some of the doors in the Vatican, a great number of artisans would have to work on portions before it is put together—by my reckoning at least forty artisans working around the clock for many months. The angels alone are difficult to carve and cannot be hurried too much.
I would also like to mention a few problems which strike me (uninformed about such matters, as I am) as problematical. I know Trump has built large casinos and golf courses and knows all about building, but I have been informed by my office janitor (who knows much more about these matters than I do) that hanging such a door would be impractical. The hinges would not work smoothly. A doorknob would be useless. A complicated system of pulleys and wedges would be required, such as those you can still see operating drawbridges in certain backward English provinces. My janitor regards the whole endeavor as hopeless and suggests instead a moving sidewalk, such as they have in airports. These can move great numbers of people without their getting tired. These walkways could be used to snake up and down the outside of the wall and penetrate through relatively teeny portals into the rarefied air of Texas. Or, he suggests, a catapult, which strikes me as being just as impractical, in its own way, as a door.
I wish to suggest to Mr. Trump, therefore, that he forego the door in favor of a window of some sort. The door will not work, no matter how beautiful it is.(c) Fredric Neuman, author of “Come One, Come All.”