The Daily News cover gives a sense of the latest crisisNY Daily News
Trump's racist comments about what he calls 'shithole countries' is a propaganda coup for our nations' enemies.
People all over the world are talking about the reprehensible damage that Donald Trump is doing to himself, the GOP and America's standing in the world.
There's no denying any of that now. But the damage he has just done to the office of the presidency, to international U.S. diplomacy and to basic common decency is inestimable.
In fact Trump's racist comments about immigration rates from what he called 'shithole countries' is actually a propaganda coup for our nations' enemies, who must be hugging themselves with glee over the needless discord that he's creating domestically and internationally, doing their work for them.
What's truly remarkable is that Trump seems to view half the Americans that live here with the same contempt the nations that actively work against our interests do.
Half the people who live and work here obviously have less value to Trump than the people who come from predominantly white nation's like Norway.
When the White House was informed of Trump's comments on Thursday they were reportedly unmoved. In fact they told the press they believed his racist comments would resonate strongly with his base, because they judge them to be as racist as the president is.
But the rest of us should be greatly moved, because no American president in the history of our national has displayed such open contempt for literally millions of our own countrymen.
Trump's racist words and actions make it clear that he does not believe he was elected to be president of all the people. The White House's reaction to his racist comments (they did not deny he made his hateful comments) make it clear they do not believe he was elected to be president of all the people.
Consider this: you did not decide which country you were born in. So should the entire course of your life, the trajectory it takes and the opportunity's that are afforded you, be determined by that fact?
Will pigmentation and dumb luck be the determining factors for our immigration policy going forward now? Is that the born on first base vision for America we want?
No wonder Donald Trump thinks they should be the determining factors. He started his career back in the early 1970's with a cash gift of $20 million dollars courtesy of his father. That's the kind of dumb luck that has sheltered him his whole life. He clearly cannot understand anyone who hasn't shared that same kind of dumb luck.
But how do you tell people from countries he considers 'shitholes' that they have the wrong color and the wrong mailing address? How do you explain that through a simple accident of fate the door to a new life in America will stay closed to them forever?
What kind of unseen violence do you do the children of people from these so called 'shithole' countries when you tell them they are of far less intrinsic value to the world and to the United States (when in fact, the statistics show otherwise)?
Doesn't discrimination that is that narrow and that narrowly targeted end up saying far more about the person making the rules than the person living under them?
And doesn't the unforgivable silence over Trump's racist cmments say more about the people who voted for (and continue to support him) now that his mask has slipped and his racism is revealed to the entire world?