National park land literally blown up by Trump's obsession in key swing state
In the past, Arizona had a reputation for being reliably conservative. Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona), despite his vehement disdain for the Religious Right, was a highly influential figure in the Republican Party — and his successor, GOP Sen. John McCain, identified as a "Goldwater Republican."
But Arizona has evolved into a volatile swing state. Arizona has a Democratic governor (Katie Hobbs) and two Democratic U.S. senators (Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego), yet Donald Trump carried Arizona by roughly 5.5 percent in 2024. And Republicans have majorities in both houses of the Arizona State Legislature.
Arizona is having plenty of heated political debates in 2026, and one of them involves the border wall project that got underway during Trump's first presidency. MAGA Republicans in Arizona want to see the construction of a U.S./Mexico border wall continue to move forward, but other Arizona residents are saying that while they want border security, they also have environmental concerns.
The Atlantic's Nick Miroff addresses those concerns in an article published on March 17, describing the effect of national park lands in the key swing state.
"At Coronado National Memorial in Arizona," Miroff explains, "the demolition crews blowing up national-park land tend to announce explosions at least a day in advance, as a warning for hikers to stay away. The crews have been working their way up the western slope of the park for the past couple of months, right along the international boundary with Mexico. President Trump's border wall needs a smooth, straight path, and there are mountains in the way. Trump didn't build along this stretch of the border during his first term, but his crews are now working at a furious pace."
Miroff adds, "They have already completed about five miles of 30-foot-tall barrier, painted jet black at the president's insistence because he thought it looked more intimidating and would be hotter to the touch."
One of the longtime Arizona residents who is openly critical of border wall construction in the San Raphael Valley area is Kate Scott, who said that seeing the wall makes her feel "physically sick."
Scott told The Atlantic, "I refuse to allow people to take our land, annihilate our animals, our plants, our water. I do not accept that as my reality. And if more people started to understand that it's not our reality to accept, they will come up with ways to push back."
Zay Hartigan, a local fire chief in that area of Arizona, told The Atlantic he considers the border wall "just a waste of money" and that surveillance towers deter smugglers.
"The valley had been shaped across tens of millions of years, by volcanoes, floods, earthquakes," Miroff notes. "Native peoples, Spanish explorers, Mexican settlers, Apache warriors, cowboys, and mountain bikers all passed through. None of them has left anything as immense and lasting as what Trump is building."
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