Trump Degrades the U.S. with Such Astonishing Regularity that It’s Not Really News
Readers who expect a rant on Trump’s referring to developing nations inhabited by people of color as “shithole countries,” while welcoming immigrants from pure-white Norway will be disappointed. Trump’s embarrassing and degrading the U.S. on the world stage (and Fox News’ defending it) is business as usual. While it cannot be normalized, it can be predicted with great accuracy from a president who is among the most despicable human beings ever to walk the Earth. Nothing to see here, folks.
Craig,
What is amazing is the way American and world press have been obsessed with every utterance, including private exchanges not matter how trivial, from President Trump since he announced his candidacy.
It used to be very unusual for participants in private political or policy discussions to reveal what was said by whom in such lurid detail. It was accepted people could express frustration or dissatisfaction in the course of any private exchange without being held up to public scrutiny.
Part of this is the Presidents own fault. His use of twitter to by pass the press certainly hasn’t helped, but even so the media has hardly found it’s finest moment with it’s cheap tabloid style, “gotcha” reportage, of the Trump presidency.
No doubt many American’s, including most Trump supporters find the President’s language refreshingly candid and very human. (Let’s be honest, Haiti is not exactly paradise and possesses a long and tragic history of human misery, the President’s description may be a little insensitive, but accurate).
Anyone who took part in a heated dispute with LBJ would tell you the discussion could get a lot more lively, and make Donald Trump mild in comparison ! The difference being it was a different time and a different media.
President Trump is not a professional politician, he’s a New York property developer used to disputes with New York build industry contractors. His language may be that of the ordinary working American, but that’s probably why , despite being a billionaire, gained some much working class support.
Nor was he alone among those legislators President employing such language ! Perhaps it’s unedifying and a little unusual to see a President giving as good as he gets in such discussions, but maybe that’s the result of electing a non politician.
Over the next four years, America will get used to having an outspoken President, who ruffles feathers and has scant regard for hypocrisy or carefully spin doctored play acting.
Craig, four years is a long time to keep being po-faced and outraged. It’s also too long to ignore the President’s achievements and only concentrate on his many shortcomings. Isn’t it time to realize President Trump might just be the fore-runner of a new era in US political life ?
Craig
Marcopolo is spot on (as usual) with his analysis on this point.
“Different times different media” is the take away key point.
And yes I agree, US citizens certainly need to normalize offensive US commentary against a large percentage of the international community, and search for some way instead to take advantage of this escalating trend (such as the US establishing new global trading initiatives) and in particular with the rapidly developing African nations economies for example, similar to the rapidly expanding Chinese “one belt one road” trading and nation developing inititive for example.
It might be a useful idea.
Lawrence Coomber
Notice the cyclic media focus on plausibly deniable second-hand reports, when there’s such a grand abyss full of actual recorded words and deeds to choose from – a great many of these so much more impactful than a mere reported slur from a known diehard bigot.
Consider the freshly consolidated megaphone – around 6 media giants – that control about 90% of what we see. This circle will only tighten, with the strangling of net neutrality. This massive hydra has an agenda. It isn’t “socialism” or “freedom” or the benefit of humanity, nor the health of the dear planet we suckle.
Rupert and his ilk don’t want accurately informed citizens capable of critical thinking. They prefer willfully ignorant, fiercely divided, isolated, fearful, depressed, malleable, wage-slave consumers.
The corporate media cabal was nearly universal in its gifting of national forums to the Trump campaign – whether with an air of revolted disgust or unctuous obsequiousness. It rolled out the red carpet and chained the spotlights for this glittering and dangerous oddity, who now so serviceably clutches at the morbid or rabid attention of a stunned and rapt global audience.
All the while, the deeper machinations proceed apace, so gargantuan as to be barely obscured in all the haze and glare.
What amazes me about Trump, and what concerns me most about his mental health, is that he’ll tell lies that a) have little or no import and b) are immediately and irrefutably proven wrong. Take for instance the size of the inauguration. Who cares???!!!
Then, when he needs credibility, as, perhaps in this “shithole” case, he can’t have it, since he’s so broadly regarded as a pathological liar. He’s truly deranged.
Reason and reality are not his strong suits.