By The Augusta Chronicle
We hope President Trump didn’t say what Democrats claim he did, even in private, when he supposedly complained to members of Congress recently, “Why are we having all these people from s*** hole countries come here?”
Assuming it’s true, which he denies, it’s highly regrettable — but only because of the boorish verbiage, and the poor example it sets and the distraction it creates.
As far as the substance goes — which is the more important matter — the question is not only a valid one, but a vital one: How many more years of mass migration from Third-World nations can America endure without completely changing the nature of America?
And why are Democrats insisting on it? We’ll discuss that in an editorial Sunday.
The left-wing media, typically, went ballistic over the president’s alleged remark — with such outlets as CNN shrieking “racism!” and alleging the president was disparaging the immigrants themselves. Of course he wasn’t; he was characterizing the hot-mess countries they are, themselves, escaping.
Fleeing one’s country is arguably a much more stinging indictment of it than what our president said.
The president’s shrill critics, some of them parading as news people, also frantically seized on his example of Norway — clearly fresh from his meeting with its prime minister — as a more advantageous country to accept immigrants from. So? Is he wrong?
Of course it’s a much greater service to humanity to take in refugees from Haiti and such — which we have done to a fault: There’s only so much we can do, only so many people we can take in without impoverishing our own middle and lower classes.
And let’s face it: Norwegians aren’t clamoring to emigrate, because their country isn’t a basket case — which gives credence to the president’s crudely worded concerns. The world is filled with nations that are beleaguered by decades if not centuries of atrocious, oppressive, dysfunctional, self-serving leadership.
We can’t fix that, though we do what we can and always will. Serving as a lifeboat is a special privilege. But it’s a delicate balance between rescuing others and keeping afloat yourself. After decades of historical amounts of mass immigration, much of it from the Third World, we have neglected our own interests far too long.
There are a few other issues raised by this superfluous rowdydow, so lamentable when there are so many weighty matters to be worked through.
One is that there can be no doubt that presidents throughout our history have thusly expressed themselves bawdily in private. But most of those conversations in the past have, happily, remained private.
And that’s the other issue: Someone in that room had to leak the president’s candid, if coarse, comments. That should indicate that the president, a political neophyte, has badly misapprehended the congeniality, motives and objectives of those around him. He needs to better understand the extent to which he is swimming with sharks.
Lastly, there’s the little matter of the media hysteria in this episode — which has been almost completely about how the president expressed himself, rather than his very legitimate point. The president may have been crude, but the media have been callow in response.
But, as we’ve seen before, it’s more important today to feel good than to do well.
