Donald Trump has a dream; we have a nightmare
So much for our “stable genius” president’s promise earlier this week to work toward meaningful immigration reform. His now infamous remarks questioning why the United States of America should accept immigrants from Haiti and some African nations suggest his mind is too cluttered with racial animus for anything of value to ever filter through.
Hopefully our nation’s elected officials can fill the leadership gap, but here too, we don’t see a lot of promise. Too many Republicans either remained silent or muted in their response to Trump’s latest degradation of the office.
It is with a great sadness and weariness that we write these words. The president of the United States of America asked a group of senators discussing a provision of legislation to protect Dreamers that would shield African immigrants why he should want “all these people from shithole countries,” adding that he would prefer instead people from places like Norway.
All the more depressing is the fact that the president’s statements hardly surprise.
Trump, after all, gathered momentum for his presidential bid insisting that America’s first black president wasn’t born in our country.
He launched that bid demonizing Mexicans and fueled it with ample insults directed at Muslims.
His equivocating on the white supremacist, white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., his anger toward black NFL players last year, his inhumane crackdown on those in the country illegally but who are otherwise law-abiding, leave little doubt about his preferences.
As others have noted, too often Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” slogan serves as code for making the country white again.
American presidents should be leaders on the world stage when it comes to standing up for equal rights. They should appreciate the incredible good fortune they inherited, through no action of their own, by simply being born in our great country. More so for a man born into a rich family in New York and given opportunities to succeed that most in the world can only dream of. Trump’s breathtaking lack of humility and compassion for others far less fortunate mystifies.
Trump’s defenders are suggesting the comments, made in private, simply reflect a salty iteration of his America First platform, that Trump merely means to champion a meritbased system for allowing in new immigrants. The reality is that such talk reveals volumes about the man, and all of it hideous. There should be no room for racial prejudice in the office.
The bipartisan provision that sparked Trump’s bigoted remarks came during discussion of temporary protected status for those in countries that have been allowed to come here following natural disasters, like the earthquake that rocked Haiti exactly eight years ago Friday.
We’re glad our senators, Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Cory Gardner are working with their peers to craft such a compromise.
Trump claimed only Tuesday that he believed even comprehensive immigration reforms weren’t out of the question. We applauded his stated willingness to compromise, even as we doubted his sincerity.
Sadly, it appears that this is a man so unfit for office it will be a miracle indeed if any useful reforms are passed on his watch.