Trump’s new low
Comment shows his racist nature
WASHINGTON — For all of the talk of President Trump’s mental state, his failure to grasp the gravity of his actions and his vacillating policy stances, there are times — like yesterday — when he paints a crystal clear picture of his true beliefs.
“Why are we having all these people from s---hole countries come here?” Trump said to lawmakers in the Oval
Office, according to multiple reports, referring to immigrants from Haiti,
El Salvador and African countries whose temporary protected status Trump ended. Instead, he told the lawmakers yesterday that, we should encourage more people to come from countries like Norway.
The lawmakers were there to discuss a legislative solution for immigrants brought here as children — whose protection Trump also nixed. It was a measure Trump said, just two days ago, should be crafted with “love.”
But Trump has been consistent in one way: He has shown little love for nonwhite immigrants or people of color already living on U.S. shores. In his “American First” vision, they come last, if they come at all.
We saw it in his refusal during his presidential campaign to apologize for, or even take back, his call for the five black and Latino teenagers wrongly convicted of brutalizing a Central Park jogger to be put to a painful death, saying he still believed them to be guilty despite DNA exoneration.
It was evident in Trump’s proud leadership of the birther movement against the country’s first black president.
He demonstrates it, his characterization, as “unpatriotic” those who dare to protest police brutality against people of color on a football field.
He showed it in the way he spoke of Mexican immigrants “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.” We saw it in his campaign promise of a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He made it clear in his tweet that the people of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico “want everything to be done for them.” We saw it in his declaration that there were “very fine people” who participated in a racist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Members of Trump’s inner circle are unbothered by the comments, I’m told, because they believe they will play well to his base. If true, it’s tragic, because they hold a world view completely at odds with the principles this country was founded upon. They, as all Americans, should be disappointed. They should be enraged.
But by now, they should not be surprised.