Shit

The President wondered aloud, to people to whom it is never smart to wonder aloud, why America is letting in so many people from "shithole" countries.  Of course, the heads on the left exploded at the denigration (check your etymological privilege) of these places, but I believe their attacks on the President's attitude completely miss the point.  Immigration is supposed to come from shithole countries.  America is all about the tired and poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Escaping shitholes is what made America great.  It's how my ancestors got here.  It's how everybody's ancestors got here, including the persecuted pilgrims and even the so-called "native Americans," who themselves migrated here from somewhere worth the trouble to migrate from when migrating was even harder than arriving two hours early for a flight.

Herr Drumpf says we should bring in more people from a place like Norway.  But, for some reason, people are not trying to sneak into America from Norway.  Maybe that's because, with all due respect to Disneyland, Norway is by all accounts the happiest place on Earth.  No, people are trying to get into America by any means necessary from places where people do not want to stay.  That's where immigrants come from.

Which brings me to the visa lottery.  I'm not sure why Trump is opposed to this program, but as an alleged branding expert, he should know better.  What better way is there for a country to demonstrate its wonderfulness than to run a raffle where the prize is a green card?  Does Russia have such a program?  I know a wonderful woman from Ukraine who got her green card through the lottery and became a citizen as soon as she could.  Ukraine is a shithole.  It's people aren't brown, but it's a shithole.

So, yes, Trump's comments were racist, but there's nothing new there.  We already knew that he favored racist policies that appeal to his racist base.  And I guess we already knew that he was stupid.  But still, if we have to pick one thing about shitholegate to go apeshit over, I nominate the man's utter ignorance of what immigration is about, what (not where) we came from, and what our generosity of spirit means to our national image and, therefore, at the end of the day, to our national self-esteem.  Having elected this fool is embarrassing enough.  But to have our noses rubbed in it daily by our leader's noise and our leaders' silence is really a bit much.

Shit.