President Donald Trump tripped over his Johnson yet again this week when, while discussing immigration policy with a bipartisan group of legislators, he described Haiti, El Salvador and most of the African continent as “shithole countries”.
Of course, the Liar-in-Chief later denied that he said this, although Congressmen of both parties, who were present, verified that he used the vulgar term. As the week progressed, and a veritable shitstorm engulfed the media, GOP leadership who were present began to have fuzzy memory of the incident…”I don’t recall”, “I didn’t hear from where I was seated”, “some course language was used by everyone”, etc. Yeah, sure. Nice damage control…
(Some comedian projected the vulgarity onto Trump’s International Hotel in Washington D.C., with a video that has a “Pay Trump Bribes Here” projected onto the front door of the hotel.)
Seriously, it’s not even news anymore when the supposed Leader of the Free World embarrasses himself and his country; he’s a flat-out racist, and he makes no bones about it. “Same insult, different day.”
And, it’s not news anymore when our President tries to cover-up some damn fool thing that he has said. Virtually every day Mr. Trump tweets some off-color, racist, or plain stupid comment or publicly states (on TV) something that is patently false or doubles down on a previous lie. Most of the time, he’s called out on this by the press, but…nobody seems to care anymore. He’s the Teflon President.
There used to be a certain dignity that attached to the office of the President of the United States. Sure, our leaders were/are political animals, and they had their opinions about all manner of things. But, they kept their private thoughts to themselves while they represented all Americans of various races, religious beliefs, and economic backgrounds. A President was expected to speak in measured terms, “with malice toward none and charity toward all”. America was respected because America gave respect to other countries.
Under the leadership of the undignified, hate-monger Donald Trump, we’ve lost that respect.
It goes without saying that the United States is a “melting pot” of immigrants; in fact, every person in this country had ancestors who immigrated here, including the “Native Americans”. Mr. Trump seems to have a healthy bias in favor of Caucasian-Christian immigrants (note: Trump’s ancestors immigrated from Germany). His favorite of the week, based on comments from the “shithole” meeting: Norwegians.
After the meeting, Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Neilsen (sounds Scandinavian to me), when asked about the ethnic make-up of Norway, supposedly didn’t know that the country is overwhelmingly Caucasian. This is the caliber of the President’s brain trust in Washington D.C….or, the level of disingenuous lying that permeates the White House these days.
At the same time, the President regularly displays his maniacal bias against any immigrant of color. Hence, his public comments about Mexican immigrants being “rapists and murderers”, African immigrants coming from “huts”, and assuming that all Haitian immigrants “have AIDS”.
Following Trump’s shit-for-brains statement, a Republican pollster brought up the fact that “43% of immigrants from ‘shithole’ African countries have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 33% of the overall American population. Nigerian-Americans, for instance, have a median household income well above the American average.”
Mr. Trump: Get your head out of your ass, Sir!
Interestingly, there have been times in this country when Irish and Italian immigrants were looked down upon as coming from “shithole” countries, Japanese immigrants were called “Jap heathens”, and German immigrants were “Nazis”. Well, at least some immigrants who were already here felt that way, wanting to deny others the opportunities that they had enjoyed. Thankfully, this attitude didn’t become national policy, or, heaven forbid, Trump’s ancestors might not have been accepted.
“Make America Great Again!” was the President’s campaign slogan. Question: When was America great? And, why?
I don’t think the Mr. Trump has ever answered these questions, and…maybe it’s time that he did, truthfully. If he did, he would probably showcase for everyone his basic misunderstanding of this country and what made it great in the first place.
Observation: I spent 90 minutes yesterday getting a deluxe pedicure at the local Creative Nails shop. The place was packed, like it is most of the time, because they excel and what they do. Every worker in that shop, including the owners, are first-generation immigrants from Vietnam. They are polite, hard-working individuals who are thrilled at the chance to come to America and better themselves. Their children speak English, get good grades, and aspire to do better than their parents. The owners of the salon have taken some of their profits and opened a high-class Vietnamese restaurant in Temecula; it’s doing well, too. Their children are well-behaved and will be going to college. No nail salons in their future; the work is too hard. They will work smarter, not harder.
These Asian-Americans might be called “gooks” and “slants” by some of Trump’s political base, but they bring things with them from the Eastern culture that we need more of in this country: dreams, aspirations and tenacity. Slacking, laziness, dependence on others…these are concepts that are alien to these “aliens”.
This is the typical story of immigration to America, despite some of our President’s cockamamie ideas. Immigrants, whether they be black, brown, yellow or white, come to our country to better themselves; there’s opportunity here. If there weren’t jobs here, poor Mexicans wouldn’t be swimming across the Rio Grande.
When those immigrants get here, they contribute their “alien” ideas, which get tossed into the melting pot, and the good ones improve the broth. That is the beauty of diversity…a plethora of ideas stimulates imagination, which leads to innovation, which moves the country forward. It has worked for America since the beginning…why would we want to change this model?
Every biologist knows that that diversity is the key to the evolution of the species. Dog breeders know that pure-bred dogs are not as healthy as mutts which have a range of dog breed genes in them. Investors know that putting all of one’s money in one stock is foolhardy; that a diversified portfolio allows for more opportunity for growth. A room full of smart guys kicking around ideas is more creative than one guy, alone in his cubicle, trying to come up with the next Pet Rock.
For the past several hundred years, America has been a laboratory where anyone, from any background or walk of life, can experiment with new ideas and attempt to move the needle of success. That’s why there are 500 billionaires in this country. Most of them are self-made.
Racism is the opposite of this. It would exclude whole swaths of humanity from participating in this “noble experiment”, and rely on ideas from one race, one religion, one political philosophy, etc. At the extreme end of racism, you have fascism, where all of the ideas come from one guy…a dictator. Hitler made his bones by blaming Jews for problems and promoting the idea that only Aryan peoples (Caucasian/Christian) could lead the Fatherland to success.
Does it ever scare you when the President makes comments like, “I’m smarter than the generals”, “Only I have the answers to that problem”, and “I know more about taxes than anyone in this country”? Sounds a whole like a narcissistic megalomaniac, doesn’t it?
It is apparent that Donald Trump has a very un-American view of the American Dream. In his world, the guys who have already made it big (the 1%) need to be the source of all ideas, and the poor need to be marginalized, kept needy, and ignored. In his view, black and brown people are the Devil’s spawn, and salvation lies with dominance by Caucasian/Christian peoples. The commingling and mixture of the races is antithetical to the Trump agenda. The overall concept is known generically as White Supremacy.
One wonders what the President thinks about Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle, who has black ancestors?
(Actually, since all of mankind had their origin in Africa, we all, including Mr. Trump, have black ancestors and originated in one of those “shithole” countries. The self-described genius has probably never considered this…)
I wonder what the voters who elected President Trump think about the man’s very obvious attempt to ethnically cleanse America? Not a day goes by that the Trump Administration doesn’t make headlines by slurring black and brown races, attempt to restrict travel to this country by non-Christians, try to rally Congress to deny medical care to poor minorities, threaten to “build a wall” to keep Mexicans from entering the U.S., and/or give support to White Supremacy groups in their various hateful endeavors.
MAGA Fan: Is this what you had in mind when you voted for this man?
The scary thing right now is that President Trump’s approval ratings seem to have stabilized at around 36 percent. This is an all-time low for a first-term President, by the way. But, that number seems to be fairly static, which tells me that about 1 adult in 3 condone this white supremacist bullshit in this country…a very sad state of affairs.
These are people who really don’t understand America and how it got great in the first place.
