The legend of Horatius, standing athwart the Pons Sublicius to defend Rome against Etruscan invaders in 508 B.C., is described by Plutarch in his "Life of Publicola," as well as Lord Macauley in "Horatius at the Bridge" (1842).  President Trump is today's Horatius, heroically defending us against the foreign invasion.

The president is making a stand against the invaders and those who support them in their effort to overrun the United States.  He is outnumbered.  Supporting the invasion:

1. The Democratic Party.  The sanctuary party is blocking urgent legislative immigration reform.  Democrats' top priority is to flood the U.S. with millions of illegals, and then, one day, when they control Congress and the White House, declare them all voting citizens.  Using the chain migration laws, if each immigrant sponsors ten relatives to be admitted, 30 million illegals legalized yields 300 million new American voters.  In the meantime, they intend to nibble around the fringes with assorted voting frauds like DMV and same-day voter registration, liberal mail-in voting, and ballot-harvesting. 

Importing a new dependent underclass is part of the Democrats' new DNA.  Any attempt at integrity of the ballot is vilified.  Any legislative effort to reform immigration is a call to arms for the Left.  They even scoff at describing the horde of invaders as a "crisis."  They believe that keeping our society in perpetual turmoil and importing a new, dependent underclass works for them politically.  Democrats also dishonestly spin the border control issue as anti–Hispanic citizen.  Their no- to low-information voters are oblivious.

2. The Mexican and Central American Governments.  Exporting their "bad hombres," as the president put it, allows them to relieve their social tensions.  They add to their national income by having the illegals remit to relatives and friends back home:

Mexico $25 billion annually (2% of GDP)

Guatemala $9 billion annually (12% of GDP)

El Salvador $500 million (21% of GDP)

Honduras $5 billion (20% of GDP)

Big incentives all around.  South of the border, bribes paid to public officials to facilitate human-trafficking grease the wheels.  Social services subsidies from U.S. taxpayers allow the aliens to send money home instead of supporting themselves.

3. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Many of their members prefer cheap illegal alien labor despite civil disorder and higher government expenditures.  Many Fortune 500 CEOs are virtue-signaling about illegal immigration, alienating many of their citizen customers in order to support leftist social justice causes.

4. The Wall Street Journal.  The news division frequently slants stories on border chaos, and the "free flow of labor" zealots on the editorial page have an opinion that can be described as the south end of a northbound 

5. The Leftist News Media.  Anything that advances the cause of the Democratic Party, they can support and provide aggressive media protection.  Add in the human interest twist of poor people just trying to live the American dream, and they have an issue worth flogging.  They are the stage managers of Democrat-socialist-progressive-leftist causes.

6. Hollywood.  Anything Trump wants, like enforcing the law, they are against, including the Constitution and the Betsy Ross flag.  Like Obama, they believe in American "guilt," that we screwed up the world, and thus the U.S. must make amends by apologizing and redistributing our wealth globally.

7. The Deep State.  The Lilliputians are on board with anything that advances the party of government, the Democrats.

8. RINOS.  They salute the Chamber of Commerce and the Kochs in a desire for low-cost labor in industry, plus lower-cost domestic labor (for gardeners and nannies).

9. Unelected Leftist Democrat Judges.  These political judges sabotage every effort to enforce immigration law.

10. George Soros and His Open Society Foundation.  At 88, the Davos king of the globalists for open borders (the GOBs) is dealing with a short fuse to abolish borders and nationalism, which he thinks are to blame for the world's problems.  Soros is the post-nationalist man of the century.

11. Left-Wing Think-Tanks and Academia.

These true believers align with the Democrats in importing new Democrat voters in order to acquire more political power.  Throw in free or in-state tuition rates for illegals as a bonus.

12. The Lawyers Guild.  Defending millions of amnesty claims and millions of appeals (at U.S. taxpayer expense) is a definite boost for legal work.

13. The United Nations.  The world's most corrupt (see the Oil for Food scandal) and useless bureaucrats desire a world without borders with them in charge.  Borders and sovereign countries just impede their mission.  Their chilling, Orwellian U.N. 2030 agenda calls for world government, and Goal 10: Reduce Inequalities calls for them to "facilitate ... migration and mobility of people."  Uh huh.  These guys need to migrate, too ... to Pyongyang or Caracas.

14. The pope.  He believes we're all God's children and there should be no borders or walls (except for the Vatican, of course).

15. Assorted U.S. Industries.  Especially construction, hospitality, and agribusiness.  These industries want greater availability of cheap labor to the detriment of American workers.

16. The Russian and Chinese Governments.  They see any trouble and chaos for the U.S. as a positive for them.  They, however, rigorously enforce their own borders.

17. Jihadis.  The terrorists see an open border as the easy way to infiltrate the U.S. and murder Americans.

18. Labor Unions.  Unions see opportunities to organize a new group and expand their revenue and influence, like what they have in the Las Vegas hospitality industry.  The teacher union favors anything that advances the cause of more government (and multi-lingual instruction).

19. The Mexican Crime Cartels.

Human-smuggling and sex-trafficking are an annual multi-billion-dollar product line with high gross margins for the drug cartels.  They intend to violently defend it.

20. The Reconquista Movement.  Some Mexican politicians support flooding the southwestern U.S. with Hispanics so that one day they will vote to secede and become part of  northern Mexico.

21. The Illegal Aliens.  Ten to thirty million (?) of them are here now, and hundreds of thousands more are pouring in monthly, some of whom are apprehended, some not.  Democrat progressive socialists vigorously oppose even having them counted in the Census, lest we know how big and expensive the problem is.  In the June Democrat debates, all the candidates offered up free health care to non-citizens (which they already get in emergency rooms).  A magnet for immigrants or Kryptonite for citizens?  The pipeline has been recently expanded to Africa.

Although aggressively opposed by these powerful antagonists, the president is using every legal tool at his disposal to stop the invading horde: building the wall, pressuring complicit governments, enforcing the laws, deportations, and reducing the magnets for illegal immigration.  The costs at every level of government are enormous and hidden.  President Trump is opposed in all his efforts by these assorted groups, but most citizens and all conservative Republicans are for him.  If the party can keep the presidency and the Senate and flip the House in 2020, then Trump will succeed in stopping the invasion.  Otherwise, we will be overrun.  This is an existential threat to America.

President Trump is reprising the role of Horatius.  The citizens of Rome are counting on him.  He needs our support.  As Macauley put it in his poem:

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:      
'To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.  
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers 
And the temples of his gods.'

Image: YouTube screen shot.