Find below a series of four Twitlonger posts about Trump’s adroit diplomatic efforts to make America great again.
Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries
As he reveals himself to the world, no one from other countries will care to come here, wherever they live. We have a list of countries that sponsor terrorism. We have a list of countries where the majority of people are Muslim. Now the State Department needs to compile a list of countries that are shitholes. Let’s have a fourth list of countries where ‘we just don’t like you.’ Then you can narrow your group of permitted immigrants down to people from Norway and Great Britain.
Long road traveled
I’m not exactly sure how you tell a shithole country from a non-shithole country, but I can tell you two things about what puts you in that category. First, any country with a leader who expresses contempt for other nations with language like that marks his own country as a shithole country. Second, any country that authorizes, practices, and defends torture as a legal way to treat prisoners is a shithole country. The same president who calls other countries shitholes has said he would torture the families of individuals he deems enemies. If you observed this behavior in a leader overseas, what would you think?
Alright, I’ll add a third observation. Trump, and the country, did not take a sudden turn downward with this remark. We have traveled a long way to reach this point. Cheney defended torture in polite, Orwellian language. Trump states his thoughts in the coarsest way possible. The contempt for others and moral rot behind Cheney and Trump are the same.
Shithole government, anyone?
Here’s another comment on Trump’s ‘shithole’ remark: politicians keep saying, ‘our country is better than this.’ They actually want to say, ‘our governnment is better than this.’ They are part of the government, and want no part of its leadership. But the fact is, our government is not better than that, no matter how they might deny it. No one in the world identifies a nation’s leaders with its people. They identify a nation’s leaders with its government. So politicians in the United States are correct to worry about how they appear.
They have just chosen the wrong word. Country and government are not the same. Trump leads the government, and we can all see what kind of job he’s doing.
Greatness comes from within. So do mediocrity and puniness.
The ever irreverent Nick Gillespie at Reason writes that we all come from shithole countries. More precisely, our forebears came from countries that were shitholes at the time they emigrated. If they weren’t shitholes, they would not have left. You don’t leave your home, friends and family to move across a large ocean if you like your prospects where already live.
Interestingly, two European countries that refugees from the Middle East regard as the place to be, Norway and Germany, were shitholes in the 1800s. During the nineteenth century, the two countries sent millions of their people across the Atlantic to populate Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and many other places in the United States, largely because conditions at home were so poor. People who are wealthy don’t need to come here.
Trump couples his addled brain with his coarse tongue. As a result, writers use asterisks to record the king’s speech. He is the first president in my entire lifetime who does not even aspire to lead his country. If he were to introduce a speech, “My fellow Americans,” most of his audience would gape, then laugh. Every word of that familiar phrase is empty. He does not know what an American is, or used to be. He has no fellow feeling for anyone except himself. He certainly has no aspiration to take on responsibilities or obligations of his office. When a narcissistic oaf becomes president, the office itself becomes a monument to your own stupidity, and a testament to your self-absorption.
I can see why people pay attention to Trump’s shithole remark. Despite all, many Americans still want to appear in a favorable light to the rest of the world. Imagine if your father takes you to a town meeting. There you hear him address his neighbors as shitheads. People pay attention to that. Suddenly they aren’t your neighbors anymore. You still have to live close to them, but they do not care for you. In fact you live in a town where no one wants anything to do with you.
That’s what America First means now. It means America Last. We not only relinquish our leadership – that happened under George W. Bush, not Trump – we now aspire to descend into our own shithole of ignominy, incivility, thoughtlessness, and weakness. Thank you, Donald Trump, for your service. You say you want to make America great again. Just like you are.
Related article
Of Course Most Immigrants Come from Shithole Countries. So What?
I don’t have time to revise all of these posts today, but I wanted to publish them while the topic is timely.
The Jeffersonian 