The Bubble: 'President Trump is a white racist,' liberals say

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Many people have accused President Donald Trump of racism after he reportedly used a derogatory term to refer to Haiti and African countries. He denies making the remarks. (Jan. 14)
AP

Each week, USA TODAY’s OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other’s media bubble.

This week, pundits, commentators, social media users and seemingly every else in the world wrestled with the ramifications of President Trump allegedly referring to a group of countries, including the entire continent of Africa, as “shitholes” while also lamenting the lack of immigrants from countries like Norway. 

Liberal commentators said it was definitive proof — added to an already large body of evidence — that Trump is a racist. Conservatives said Trump was right about the problems facing those countries, and about the need to seek “immigrants with higher skills,” even if they didn’t agree with his choice of words.

Last week: Trump no crazier than other presidents

Conservative bubble: Trump used wrong words, but had right idea

“There are many reasons a president shouldn’t say such a thing,” the editors of the National Review said. “It is disparaging to people in the United States who are from these countries. It is insulting to the leaders of those countries, for no good reason. And, inevitably, it will serve to make it even harder to pass a serious restrictionist agenda.” 

But Trump was largely right, despite his poor choice of words, the editorial argues. “Sub-Saharan nations, and perhaps Haiti — really are basket-cases” and the “lottery is one of our worst immigration programs.” 

And as for the Norway comment, what Trump was “almost certainly trying to get at, in his typically confused way, is that we’d be better off with immigrants with higher skills,” not that he prefers white immigrants, the editorial said. 

​​​​​​Opinion: Trump smeared my son’s birthplace. Parents need your help, Congress.

Liberal bubble: President Trump is a white racist! 

It bears repeating that “President Trump is a white racist!” philosophy professor George Yancy wrote in The New York Times. 

It must be repeated because America is at a “moral crossroads” between Martin Luther King’s dream and Trump’s nightmare, Yancy said. And to “honor Dr. King, we must not remain silent, we must not betray his legacy.” 

If Mr. Trump’s white supremacist behavior in the White House doesn’t get called out and stopped, then America needs to hide its face, run away in shame, and declare national and international moral forfeiture. The American people need to scream at the top of their voices, “America is morally bankrupt under Donald Trump.” America has made a Faustian deal, one that many politicians are too weak-willed and gutless to confront.

President Trump: ‘I am not a racist’

Conservative bubble: ‘Shithole’ isn’t a racist term

“If I had realized, over the years, that when people referred to places I have lived as ‘shitholes’ they were being not only rude but racist, I could have been even more offended,” said Washington Post columnist Gary Abernathy.

Abernathy said the label has often been applied to southern Ohio and “most of West Virginia” for years. 

But thanks to media coverage of President Trump’s alleged use of the word, they will from now on be aware that being called a “shithole” place to live is a racist insult, which will be a little confusing to the overwhelmingly white population. No matter, because Trump’s haters never lack the ingenuity necessary to define his every utterance as a racist rant.

More: ‘Divisive,’ ‘elitist,’ ‘racist’: Reactions to Trump’s immigration comments

Liberal bubble: Focusing on ‘shithole’ misses the point 

It doesn’t matter what insult Trump used to describe countries during his meeting with lawmakers last week, said CNN’s Chris Cillizza. 

“The point, after all, is this: The President of the United States, in a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators and congressman, derided countries primarily populated by black and brown people and lauded a country (Norway) that is almost entirely white,” Cillizza said.

“Throughout his presidency — and his life — Trump has trafficked in racial language, racial stereotyping and racial animus. This is who he is and what he does; the history is conclusive.”

More: Without countries like the ones Trump trashed, there’d be no you, me or America

Conservative bubble: Trump was right about Haiti 

“Let’s be clear about one thing here: Haiti is a shithole,” wrote The Federalist’s Ben Domenech. “I’ve been there twice. It has a cholera epidemic thanks to the United Nations and a burgeoning child sex trafficking problem thanks to the predilections of evil people. It is really a hellish place.” 

The fact that we granted people from Haiti temporary protected status shows how bad it is, Domenech argued. “But for those eager to tag him as a white supremacist — as an opinion editor of The Washington Post did yesterday — this was an easy opportunity to do so.” 

“Anti-immigration appetites are fed when people are unwilling to admit the truth about what they are arguing,” Domenech said. And he would argue that America specializes in taking “the rejected refuse of the world” and turning “them into citizens.”

“That is part of what makes us exceptional,” he said. “I wish our president understood that.”

Editorial board: Trump’s racist remarks roil obvious immigration deal

Liberal bubble: Trump’s America is the ‘shithole’

When compared to other developed nations, America is “a shithole country,” said Danielle Campoamor in an opinion piece for Newsweek.

Citing the rate at which women in the U.S. — particularly black women — die during childbirth, income inequality, poor veterans’ care, the lack of mandatory paid maternity leave, restrictions on women’s access to abortions, America’s ranking in math and science, the number of people incarcerated, the rate of sexual assault, the literacy rate and the number of gun deaths, Campoamor argues that the idea the U.S. is “above reproach is as absurd as it is dangerous.” 

“We shouldn’t be asking immigrants to prove their worth, when this country seems to be unworthy of them,” she said. 

More: African ambassadors condemn Trump remarks as ‘racist’

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President Donald Trump, second from left, talks with Charles Evers, left, Civil Rights movement activist, after arriving on Air Force One at Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport in Jackson, Miss., Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017. Trump is speaking at the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, third from right, listens. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) ORG XMIT: MSSW101 
Susan Walsh, AP
Various current and past public officials join Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, second from right, and Myrlie Evers, center, civil rights activist and widow of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, as they cut open the oversized ribbon symbolizing the opening of the two museums, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on Dec. 9, 2017, in Jackson, Miss. 
Rogelio V. Solis, AP

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