Posted on 01/12/2018 10:08:41 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Once again expressing hostility toward entire groups of immigrants, he further damages American political culture.
The president of the United States should not, by word or deed, communicate that he is hostile to or disdainful of entire classes of the American population. It doesn’t matter if such divisive rhetoric helps him win elections, nor if the reaction of his opponents is often overblown. As president, his obligation remains the same: Make your case without demonizing whole groups of people.
This shouldn’t be difficult for conservatives to understand. It’s an argument they’ve been making against Democrats for the better part of a decade. It’s the argument against identity politics.
Virtually every engaged conservative knows the term “bitter clinger.” When Barack Obama spoke at a San Francisco fundraiser in 2008 and offered his amateur sociological assessment that some Americans become “bitter” about social change and “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them,” conservatives didn’t hear dispassionate analysis. They heard contempt.
Among the terrible effects of negative polarization is the widespread perception — often created by presidents and presidential candidates themselves — that a president governs for the benefit of his constituents alone. Thus, in a very real way, voting becomes an act of self-defense rather than a positive expression of one’s values: Win the election or face the consequences. Indeed, in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorable” comment and her declaration that Republicans were her “enemies,” millions of conservatives were motivated to go to the polls. (Remember “charge the cockpit or die”?)
With all that in mind, how should a conservative react to President Trump’s alleged comments about immigration from “sh**hole” or “sh**house” countries?
First, if you’re spending your time defending the notion that some countries are truly bad places to live, you’re missing the point entirely. Of course some countries are worse places to live than others. But Trump wasn’t talking about which countries he’d most like to visit or retire to. He was talking about which countries’ immigrants should be most and least welcomed by the United States.
Second, these comments must be understood in the context of Trump’s relatively short history as the country’s most visible political figure. From the opening moments of his presidential campaign, Trump has made sweeping, negative remarks about immigrants from third-world nations. Even when he qualifies those remarks (“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”) the qualification is weak. Isn’t it reasonable for a Mexican American to assume that when Trump says Mexico is “forcing their most unwanted people into the United States,” he is expressing a negative personal perception of Mexican immigrants?
Moreover, time and again, Trump has engaged in actions and rhetoric that inflame broader racial tensions and betray possible racial bias. As my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out this morning, the president’s businesses have been credibly accused of racial discrimination, he claimed that an American judge couldn’t do his job fairly because of the judge’s Mexican heritage, he delayed condemning David Duke as long as he possibly could, and after the dreadful alt-right rally and terrorist attack in Charlottesville, he went out of his way to declare that there were “very fine people” on both sides. One doesn’t even have to delve too deeply into Trump’s alleged comparison of Norway with the “sh**holes” of Africa to understand why a reasonable observer would believe that he has problems with entire classes of Americans, immigrants, and citizens of other nations.
The fact that modern debate has become extraordinarily stupid does not excuse us from understanding and recognizing the core problem with Trump’s comments. Yes, it’s ridiculous to see a parade of progressives take to Twitter to argue that desperately poor and often terribly corrupt third-world nations are really just lovely and amazing places. Yes, it’s even more ridiculous to see a different group of progressives argue that, wait, America is the true “sh**hole.”.” But it’s just as ridiculous for conservatives to pretend that the outrage over Trump’s comments truly centers around his assessment of Haiti and Africa when it clearly centers around his assessment of Haitians and Africans. His remarks came amid a discussion of immigration policy, after all.
At this point I simply can’t see how a conservative could look a concerned third-world immigrant (or descendent of a third-world immigrant) in the eye and assert that this president judges them fairly and without bias. The intellectual and rhetorical gymnastics necessary to justify not just Trump’s alleged comments yesterday but his entire history and record of transparent hostility to certain immigrants are getting embarrassing to watch. Some of his comments may “work” politically — divisive comments often do — but that doesn’t make them any less damaging to American political culture as a whole.
For all too many Americans, Trump once again got personal. My youngest daughter is an African immigrant — we adopted her from a desperately poor region of a country that has suffered in the recent past from terrible corruption and oppression. Yet she’s been a delightful addition to our American family, and her story isn’t unique. There are millions of Americans and lawful immigrants who hear comments like Trump’s and understand that he’s talking about them. Why shouldn’t they be angry? Why shouldn’t conservatives unite to ask the president to do and be better?
No one can credibly argue that political discourse before Trump was healthy and virtuous. No one can credibly argue that he’s the first American to intentionally divide Americans by race, class, or religion, either. But a president can make our political culture better, or he can make it worse. And Trump seems determined to make it worse.
As a retired military member, I have been to some of these countries during my career. They literally are Shitholes, especially Somalia.
This assh@t writer defended Kevin Williamson who wrote that low income white communities and small towns “deserve to die”.
Now this weak, frightened, virtue signalling hypocrite writer French declares:
“The president of the United States should not, by word or deed, communicate that he is hostile to or disdainful of entire classes of the American population”
Go F*ck yourself, French !
Do you mean like is done against whites everyday? Is that what you mean?
"It’s the argument against identity politics."
When you start arguing aginst the plethora of non white political and lobby race groups in the same fashion you hypocritcally hold Trump to you may have some sort of point. When we get rid of the Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, LaRaza, NAACP and the literally thousands of anti-white race based groups then there may be something to talk about. Otherwise your glossing over this elephant in the room leads to no credence in whatever your point is supposed to be.
Then, why are these people coming here? Because their countries are so wonderful??
The President is right. I wish he had chosen different words though.
When a m*zlim murders innocent humans, the entire left shows NO outrage, but shows its true concern, for the murderers. They condemn the normal people who dare mention that it’s m*zzies doing the murdering!
Their outrage over DJT’s words is hypocritical!
“The President is right. I wish he had chosen different words though.”
I was shocked when I watched Alan Dershowitz on Hannity last night. He’s a smart man in many ways, but it seemed apparent that he believes the Emma Lazaraus poem is Immigration Law. He was criticizing PDJT’s statement only in the context of the poem as if the poem were official Federal policy.
If I did Twitter I’d inform him that the poem was placed there almost two decades after the statue went up. And it wasn’t official. In fact, it was “snuck” on there illegally.
I was beginning to admire him in some small way, but it’s apparent he’s just another left-wing, not-too-bright activist.
Mister French you lost and America won; get over it or learn to live with it.
Mister French you lost and America won; get over it or learn to live with it.
So many lining up to jump this particular shark and all to be upset when someone does some stories to show ho bad these countries really are......
The President told the truth- a lot of nations are cesspits and dunghills. It is about time that we have someone in office who speaks the truth, however coarsely.
The Never Trumpers & the media are totally clueless regarding how the average AMERICAN-—born here of American citizens-—thinks about our culture & their political positions.
The fools in the media & the Congress are pushing this country to a war.
Just keep on pushing, fools. ....you won’t like the results. When the shooting & fighting stops, there will be a great depletion in the media, politicians, academia, illegals, Muslims, welfare recipients and other intruders.
There will be NO MERCY towards any of these groups and there will be no POW’s.
This country needs a cleansing & they are clueless about how close they are to having it handed to them in a permanent fashion.
There are millions of Patriots in America & they are tired of being mislead & lied to.
The website for the State Department has a list of countries where working at the Embassy gets a bump in your pay-—due to the conditions of being in that country. Sorta like hazard duty pay.
Look it up for yourself.
He wouldn’t have received as much attention and from what I am hearing and reading, more and more people are AGREEING with him. He’s taking the heat very well and perhaps getting those who ignore the problems in those countries...and there are problems to pay attention.
I was appalled at first, but now, I think he did the right thing. Again.
Illegals are not immigrants. They are invaders.
National Review is a shithole.
And David French is the asshole from which it sprang.
Dear Mr. French,
If I wanted your opinion I’d have taken time to beat it out of you.
Nothing but love,
L
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