The following article by Philip Kennicott was posted on the Washington Post website January 12, 2018:
As President Trump denied calling Haiti and African countries ‘shithole countries,’ Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) confirmed and condemned his language. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Over the past year, as our political culture has grown more coarse and corrupt, I’ve felt different things: sometimes, anger; often, bitter resignation; and occasionally, a bemused sense of pure absurdity. But the past two nights I have actually wept. Why now? Why in response to these particular prompts? A confused and ailing woman in a thin medical gown was tossed to the roadside in freezing weather by security guards from the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus in Baltimore. Who orders such a thing, and why would anyone carry out that order? Then, the president of the United States calls Haiti, El Salvador and African nations “shithole” countries. Who says that kind of thing? Who thinks it? Who listens to it without reflexive outrage?
According to a few of the president’s defenders, this is what we all really think. “This is how the forgotten men and women of America talk at the bar,” said a Fox News host, imputing to ordinary Americans sentiments they wouldn’t suffer to be said at their own dinner tables. There was the usual talk about “tough” language, as if using racist language was merely candor or an admirable impatience with euphemism. Continue reading “What did the men with Donald Trump do when he spoke of ‘shithole countries’?”