In 2014, Stone and Nunberg came to a new way of approaching the issue: he should propose a physical barrier along the border. They initially imagined the pitch as a mnemonic device that would remind the often unfocused potential candidate to remember to touch on immigration in speeches and interviews. But for a lifelong builder, the concept of a “wall” clicked in a way that visa-overstay enforcement never could. It became a political cause unto itself. And when he delivered that promise in Iowa in January—“We have to build a fence,” he said, “and it’s got to be a beauty”—the audience took to
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