by George Rasley, CHQ Editor
[Editor’s note: This commentary contains strong adult language not suitable for young children.]
We’ve observed an interesting phenomenon since Donald Trump was elected President; it is now common for almost any political discussion to include the phrase “normal Americans” to contrast what people outside the Beltway think about issues versus what the establishment elite think about the issues.
Does that mean that liberals are not “normal?”
We think it does, and we cite the liberal explosion of outrage over the President asking why we need more immigration from “shithole” countries as evidence.
In an Oval Office meeting at the White House Thursday, ABC News reports that President Trump grew frustrated at a proposed bipartisan immigration plan that would scale back the visa lottery program, but not eliminate it, asking those in the room why they would want more people from Haiti, Africa and other “shithole countries” coming into the United States, according to multiple sources either briefed on or familiar with the discussion.
ABC reports the president suggested instead that the U.S. should have more people from places like Norway, whose prime minister he met with Wednesday, according to these sources.
Note there’s no firsthand report from someone who was in the meeting that Trump said what ABC reported, but for the moment let’s accept that it is accurate. (The President has now denied making the remark.)
We agree that President Trump’s characterization of various counties as “shithole” countries, was, to say the least, inelegant, and not something that an experienced politician would say in front of his enemies, such as the Democrats and establishment Republicans who were apparently in the room when he dropped the remark.
However, stop by any place where “normal” Americans may be found, say a truck stop, a construction site or the breakroom at a factory, and ask the normal Americans gathered there to describe Haiti, Angola, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and various other nations at the bottom of the UN’s list of underdeveloped countries and chances are pretty good that those countries will be described as “shitholes.”
What’s more, we bet if you asked in an unguarded moment any “abnormal American”, such as a liberal journalist, if they would like a multi-year assignment to any of those places, that journalist would say “that shithole?”
But social media and the establishment media were over the top in their denunciations of Donald Trump’s expression of what “normal Americans” think:
Leftwing “journalist” Lawrence O’Donnell tweeted, “My ancestors came from one of Trump’s “shithole” countries with no running water, no indoor toilets, rampant poverty and famine. Ireland. That was back when Trump’s family name was still Drumf and they lived in a “shithole” country.”
The LA Times editorialized: “It’s hard to interpret Trump’s statement — comparing Haiti and Africa with Norway, in effect — as anything other than an attack on people of color around the world.”
CNN used a quote from lawyer Neal Katya saying Trump’s remarks revealed his “his un-American racist ideology.”
Journalist Sarah Harvard tweeted she is “proud to be the daughter of an immigrant from an African ‘s—hole’ country.”
Actress Monica Raymund tweeted “Shithole countries”?! This guy isn’t even trying to hide his bigotry. @realDonaldTrump is a bigot, a racist, and a shithole himself. I am absolutely disgusted, offended since my own family came here from a third world country…”
Dan Rather in a tweet called the comment a “new low” and “disgraceful for him, the country, and every American.” “The latest outrage from President Trump disparaging immigrants from what he calls “shithole” countries is a new low. It’s disgraceful for him, the country, and every American.”
And here’s what John Bowden of The Hill reports the congressional elite said about the President’s comments:
Rep. Mia Love (UT-4), the nation’s first Haitian-American representative, said the president’s remarks were “unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values.”
Other Republicans, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), called for a “detailed explanation” of Trump’s comments, while Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) called them “disappointing.”
“I would not talk about nations like this, because I believe the people of those countries are made in the image of God and have worth and human dignity,” Lankford said in a statement.
“Part of what makes America so special is that we welcome the best and brightest in the world, regardless of their country of origin,” Hatch said in his statement.
“This is racism, plain and simple, and we need to call it that. My Republican colleagues need to call it that too,” Rep. Tim Walz (MN-1) tweeted.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) tweeted that Trump’s comments “smack of blatant racism – odious and insidious racism masquerading poorly as immigration policy. He does not speak for me as an American.” He echoed his comments on MSNBC.
POLITICO reported that Democrats were quick to pounce on the remarks, slamming Trump for what Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY-5) described on Twitter as “abhorrent bigotry.”
“Breathtakingly offensive,” wrote Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on Twitter. “Worse, it’s ignorant of American ideals, and of the strength we derive from E Pluribus Unum. This is not who we are.”
“This is not who we are” is what the liberal elite – abnormal Americans – always say when someone, such as President Trump, expresses what “normal Americans” think.
The President may have been inelegant and may have caused an unnecessary media storm by his remark, but he wasn’t wrong to ask the question: Why do we need more uneducated immigrants from underdeveloped countries?
We think all the establishment huffing and puffing about his remark is cover for the fact that other than achieving their goal of fundamentally changing America, they have no answer for why we need more uneducated immigrants from underdeveloped countries, and what’s more, we think the vast majority of “normal Americans” out at the truck stops, construction sites and factory breakrooms agree with him.
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George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie’s ConservativeHQ.com. A veteran of over 300 political campaigns, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for Rep. Mac Thornberry now-Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Reprinted with permission from ConservativeHQ.com
