The current POTUS uses the word shithole to describe a group of countries and he's X, Y and Z.
Yeah, Trump is a moron. But the hypocrisy of the press and the public is a moral violation.
Maybe you can give some examples to support the narrative of Americans creating poor conditions in non-European countries. It's certainly not Afghanistan, which had been a warzone for a long time before 9/11, which provoked American involvement. And though it's possible, it's hard to argue that Iraqi instability was the sole result of American invasion, as Saddam had massacred several hundred thousand of his own citizens and was trying to change the ethnic makeup of northern Iraq to dampen Kurdish separatism.
So I'm not sure to which countries you are referring.
And Trump just cut most of the relief funding, so a lot of social welfare programs are being cut short.
Making countries rich is part of geopolitical strategy (for instance, West-Germany vs. East-Germany). For every country that the US "made rich" is a country where life expectancy went way down due to US involvement.
I'd like to add, I never said there were no positives. My point is, shithole is a word. And if the use of a word is going to draw this kind of fire then the actions (that create shitholes) create 10x the amount of attention. But that doesn't happen. And obviously that is wrong.
Trump can be a fool. But there is quite a bit of truth to his perception of the MSM, and how that impacts public opinion. Fake News isn't just about facts. Fake News is also about what the MSM highlights v what it does not. Not everything that gets report is news. Unless of course it fits a narrative, drives advertising dollar and/or masks the need to report on something more important.
Put another way: Stick and stones and MIC drones are breaking non-white bones and you're worried about the alleged sentimate of a word? Turn off the MSM and get a new less rose coloured filter.
I'm reading it as "since there are drone strikes, it is not worth criticizing an American president for referring to poorer nations as 'shitholes'."
Why can't you say "we want fewer drone strikes, and also more dignified and respectable leaders"?
How are the two issues of drones and Trump's foul comment linked in any way?
In short: Actions speak louder than words. And if "shithole" is going to raise a ruckus, then where is the ruckus for the shitholes our actions are creating? Why is there silence for death and outrage for a word? How is that not hypocritical? The fact that you're wanting to push back only reaffirms my point. That is: We. Are. Lost. And at the mercy of a compass-less MSM.
I hope that helps. Issue closed.
And the "we" in that statement is Trump, who speaks for the nation as its president.
Of course reasonable people can disagree on the degree of the threat posed by immigration. But you have to admit that if every person on earth moved to America overnight, life as we know it would be changed for the worse forever. Therefore it is reasonable to question where on the scale from 0% to 100% of the world population should be welcomed with open arms at the border. And it's not a huge leap to go from that question to the idea that not every single applicant for admittance poses the same threat (if any) as another -- so some discrimination between them is not only logical, but just.
If you accept the above conclusion, then it's quite possible for that word he used to be a reasonable idea expressed in an uncharitable manner.
I agree with you as far as that goes.
But then you go further to say that it's possible that Trump was trying to express the position you just described, albeit in an uncharitable and rude way, and that's where you lose me.
It's possible that you could theorize a hypothetical person who expresses that sentiment in that manner, but is that hypothetical person Donald Trump, with all the context of his previous comments and decisions? Because we're not talking about a hypothetical here, we're talking about actual sentiments expressed by an actual person, with a history racial insensitivity (to put it lightly) and heavy-handed bans that have no legal basis (again, to put it lightly).
It's not meaningful to come up with hypotheticals unless you attribute that hypothetical to Trump, and attributing this one to him means that it needs to be squared with his previous actions and positions. In my opinion, it seems fantastically unlikely that he was trying to express your position; if you believe differently, I'd be interested in your reasoning.
For the record I'm no fan or defender of Trump. But whatever we think of his obvious character flaws, he's really nothing without supporters.
What I have been trying to do is understand the people who do support him and articulate the best possible interpretation of events that I can make for how someone can support him.
That's not to pretend he doesn't have some racist supporters, he does.. but I think they are a very (very) small percentage of people who hold their nose at him personality and yet give him their support.
What I hear from the Left, over and over, is charges of racism and attributing the worst possible motives to most his supporters -- a strawman argument which they can then knock down with moral indignation.
So back to our discussion.
I don't think it pays to continually be outraged at Trumps never ending provocations. What I think needs to happen is to have an honest discussion -- where people on the left have to say "Trump is an idiot, but we understand that there are problems with unfettered immigration, and we respect the people who are worried about protecting America. We recognize them as patriots, not racists. We understand that many people support Trump not because they are attracted to his personality, but because we have not been willing to properly balance our desire to help people of the world with our need to protect our fellow citizens (regardless of political stripe)".
I am no expert on what the proper level of immigration should be, or how to vet appropriate applicants. But until we take responsibility for our blind spots, and at least be willing to acknowledge the other side as legitimate, we're going to keep talking past one another.
If we keep going the way we're going, Trump is going to get elected again. The entire culture is currently focused on the wrong thing -- and that isn't Trump's fault, it's ours.
I don't think that everything Trump does deserves the ire it inspires, but I think there's a cost to just accepting outrageous things without being outraged. What's happening is not normal, and I don't want it to become normal. If people stop getting outraged for valid reasons, and I believe that this is a valid reason to be upset, then this behavior becomes accepted and that's not something I want.
There's a way to have a conversation about immigration. That conversation does not start with the President saying "Why do we want people from these shithole nations, we want more people from great countries like Norway", and I think it's reasonable to hold the President to the standard of starting the conversation in the appropriate way. Doing that is literally his job, and just because he and some of his supporters think it's funny to "LOL triggered yet libs?" doesn't make it appropriate, doesn't make it right, and doesn't make it just.