By ELIZABETH WHITE
Managing Editor
Typically, presidents are known for their presidential way of speaking. They sound well informed, educated, con dent and dignified.
President Trump – not so much.
This issue was brought to the forefront a few weeks ago when Trump and some lawmakers were talking about “protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal,” according to The Washington Post.
“Why are we having all these people from s**thole countries come here?” Trump said, according to lawmakers in the meeting.
He then went on to say that he believed America should bring in more people from countries like Norway.
Lawmakers present in the meeting were shocked by Trump’s comments and suggestion that immigrants from white countries were preferred, according to The Washington Post.
The media had a field day with Trump’s comments, with many making the editorial choice to print his exact words, while others simply stated that Trump used vulgar or offensive words in relation to African countries.
But many Republicans and Trump supporters have jumped to his defense, saying that Trump is simply stating what everyone believes about these countries anyway.
Jesse Watters, from Fox News talk show “The Five,” said that he believed Trump’s comments were either fake news or how the average American would talk at the bar.
“Is it graceful? No. Is it polite or delicate? Absolutely not. Is it a little offensive? Of course it is,” Watters said. “But you know what? This doesn’t move the needle at
all. This is how Trump is. He doesn’t care. He shoots from the hip. And if he offends some people, fine.”
It seems like no matter what Trump says or who he offends his base will always be unbothered.
Cory Booker, a New Jersey senator, passionately criticized Trump during the Senate oversight hearing of Homeland Security Department Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
“The commander in chief, in an Oval Office meeting, referring to people from African countries and Haitians with the most vile and vulgar language – that language festers,” Booker said. “When ignorance and bigotry is allied with power, it is a dangerous force in our country.”
Booker went on to say that Trump’s words “give license to bigotry and hate in our country.”
It is not okay for a president to say that people
from poor countries that are less fortunate than America shouldn’t come here to make a better life for themselves and their children.
It is not okay for a president to use vulgar language.
When Trump uses such vulgar language to speak about immigrants, it sets a terrible precedent for the way average Americans speak about immigrants and people from “s**thole countries.” Trump is telling children across the country that is okay to speak like that. He is telling them that it is okay to discriminate against people that are not white.
Immigrants from these “s**thole countries” are what truly make America great.
“The ‘success stories’ of immigrants who came to the United States and changed it for the better aren’t exceptions to some rule that dooms nonwhite people to failure because of their innate cultural flaws,” Molly Roberts of The Washington Post wrote. “They are examples of what can happen when someone enters an environment whose structures allow them to excel.”
In reality, perhaps America is the “s**thole country.”
There are 41 million Americans living in poverty, “with the top one percent of Americans controlling 38 percent of the nation’s wealth,” according to Newsweek.
“On average, there is more than one mass shooting for each day in America,” according to Mass Shooting Tracker.
According to Foreign Policy, America is the “only industrialized country in the world not to have paid maternity leave.”
The list goes on. Maybe Trump should take a step back and reflect on his own country before judging other ones.
