You can quit with the apologetics. The context was...

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, after being presented with a proposal to restore protections for immigrants from those countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal.

So it is not about whether shithole is a factual description of the countries. It is about whether they have the right kind of people to favour as immigrants.

This casual and unwitting racism just tells us so much about Trump and those who leap to his support with their bullshit rationalisations.

No time for that level of idiocy.

Ditto.

Those quotes are disputed, as we've already discussed. And I don't think they're necessarily evidence of racism on Trump's part. On this point, I agree with Baden earlier. Trump is not the malevolent person the media tries so hard to paint him as.

I think people need to stop shooting from the hip with charges of racism and do a little bit more introspection. It was sheer comic absurdity seeing those reporters ask Trump, "Are you a wacist?! This is a serious question!" If it was, I notice that no one in the room seemed to care, the majority of whom were black.

Being from a shit hole (like New Orleans) doesn't make one into a shit hole. The concern is that people from shit holes (like New Orleans) may lack resources to help themselves in whatever place they end up in.

I don't think the UK rations out immigration "places" by country. — Michael

So how is it determined which immigrants to accept and which to reject? First come, first served? Most plausible sounding sob story? Parts missing? What?

only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with them." — TimeLine

Learning Latin wouldn't have helped. They speak Spanish, Portuguese, and an assortment of Amerindian languages. Some even speak English without an Australian accent--always a plus.

I think people need to stop shooting from the hip with charges of racism and do a little bit more introspection. It was sheer comic absurdity seeing those reporters ask Trump, "Are you a wacist?! This is a serious question!" If it was, I notice that no one in the room seemed to care, the majority of whom were black. — Thorongil

First of all I don't agree we should reject Haitians. But even if we decide we should, there's still a problem.

If you are a coach for an athletic team and a person who is overweight wants to play. When you talk with other coaches, you might say it's not a good idea to have overweight people because it hurts our chances of winning. But if you say "why should we have fat fucks on this team?" do you not sense some sort of prejudice in that statement? Is it okay to say that because they actually are overweight?

The country people are from is a huge part of their identity. Yes many of these countries are struggling. No one is claiming when trump says Haiti is a shithole, that Haiti is actually doing great economically. The point is that it's belligerently disrespectful to generalize a bunch of countries and call them shitholes.

The country of my ethnicity isn't the best economically. It's one thing for trump to say he doesn't want people from there because the country isn't well-to-do enough that they may not help our economy. It's another thing to call that country a shithole. I'm not sure if you identify with any of these "shithole countries", but maybe if you don't and you did instead, you'd understand why many people find that statement really fucked up.

It doesn't even matter if you only meant to insult the economic and political conditions of the country. You belligerently insulted the identities of millions of people. At best that would make you a careless jackass.

I'm listening to conservative talk radio and they're saying that Trump is not racist because he was only referring to the country not the people.

Learning Latin wouldn't have helped. They speak Spanish, Portuguese, and an assortment of Amerindian languages. Some even speak English without an Australian accent--always a plus. — Bitter Crank

That was, quite clearly, the joke.

I'm listening to conservative talk radio and they're saying that Trump is not racist because he was only referring to the country not the people. — Purple Pond

Is it not enough that it is a perfect proof of the fact, fact that has been screamed across all media platforms imaginable, possible and in existence since the beginning of this travesty, that Trump is unfit for presidency? Unfit for public service of any kind, really?

So how is it determined which immigrants to accept and which to reject? First come, first served? Most plausible sounding sob story? Parts missing? What? — Bitter Crank

You realize that there is a legal framework for refugee acceptance, right?

"The IRB decides who is a Convention refugee or a person in need of protection.

Convention refugees are outside their home country or the country they normally live in. They are not able to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on:

race
religion
political opinion
nationality, or
membership in a social group, such as women or people of a particular sexual orientation.

A person in need of protection is a person in Canada who cannot return to their home country safely. This is because if they return, they would be subject to a:

danger of torture
risk to their life, or
risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

Your refugee claim may not be eligible to be referred to the IRB if you:

have been recognized as a Convention refugee by another country that you can return to.
have already been granted protected person status in Canada.
arrived via the Canada-United States border.
are not admissible to Canada on security grounds, or because of criminal activity or human rights violations.
made a previous refugee claim that was not found eligible.
made a previous refugee claim that was rejected by the IRB.
abandoned or withdrew a previous refugee claim.
"

Fun fact :

Because of the clause "arrived via the Canada-United States border." which makes you unable to claim refugee status from the Canada-United States border, and because it is not a crime to enter undeclared into Canada if you have the intent to claim refugee status, it is much more profitable to sneak your way across the border, present yourself at an immigration office once in Montreal, and then claim refugee status. They will not be able to deny your claim on the basis of the US Border clause.

Trump wants to run the country like he ran his casinos - get the right sort of people in (rich=winners!), keep the riff-raff out (poor=losers!). To the extent that he associates race with riches, there's a racist element to his thought, but primarily he's thoughtless and speaks from his gut fear of / contempt for the dispossessed. Concentrating on the racist aspect is also a bad strategy for his opposition in my view as it's not going to convince anyone who voted for him or is likely to vote for him not to do so again. Trump won working class whites the last time round; you're not going to get them back with academic arguments about racism every time he opens his big mouth.

Hah, don't count on low voter turnout next election. Something the Democrats have always struggled with. Working class Americans aren't all armchair "economic" fascists educated by Fox News.

That depends entirely on the Democrat candidate, really. Everyone who voted against him knew how bad Trump would turn out to be. Everyone who voted for him were and likely somewhat still are convinced he is doing a good job*. The Dems have already shown a willingness to give the country over to a second-rate crook who happened to make it to the big times, simply because they didn't have a candidate politicaly sexy enough.

One ought to turn one's back on the U.S. entirely and call the whole place a political wasteland.

* relatively to Obama.

The Dems have already shown a willingness to give the country over to a second-rate crook who happened to make it to the big times, simply because they didn't have a candidate politicaly sexy enough. — Akanthinos

Yeah, that's the Fox News cool aid there, along with some (actually considerable) Russian meddling.

* relatively to Obama. — Akanthinos

What do you mean by that?

What do you mean by that? — Posty McPostface

That to a certain electorate, it doesn't matter how bad the person is or does, as long as he is definitly not Obama, or like Obama.

Yeah, that's the Fox News cool aid — Posty McPostface

I don't think this is something Fox News did to the americans. I think it's something the Dem have driven themselves into. They had a decade or two to shape the political discourse, and wasted it on focusing on the same things that had worked for them in the 90s.

You realize that there is a legal framework for refugee acceptance, right? — Akanthinos

Actually, I do understand something about the process by which people attain refugee status. Refugees are often in dire straits, and the process by which they get from a refugee center in Kenya, for example, or one in Turkey or Thailand, to Sweden or the United States, Canada, or... is slow and difficult. But that wasn't the question I was asking.

The question I was asking was NOT about refugees, but how does the UK prioritize non-refugee would-be immigrants? Many on the various roads around the world are not refugees. Many are migrants, seeking better opportunities than they can find at home.

True enough, the US would experience some losses if we expelled all the Haitians, Salvadorans, Hondurans, and some others. The bigger problem for these people would be their forced return home. First, poor countries would lose the remittances their expat citizens send back home. For El Salvador it's a huge hunk of their economy. Second, a country like El Salvador doesn't have the means to reintegrate 200,000 people arriving over a fairly short period of time (like a year or two). Third, El Salvador has the highest murder rate outside of war zones. That's because of gang activity started in southern California and then repatriated to El Salvador.

The situation in Haiti and Honduras are of course different than for the Salvadorans. Haiti used to be either food self-sufficient or close to it--not centuries ago, just decades ago. Now its not, and it wasn't population growth that changed that. It's not only a shit hole, it's a badly fucked over country for which several other countries, including the US, are responsible. Then there have been earthquakes and hurricanes which haven't helped.

Speaking of the Congo, as TimeLine was, "The Congo" had been subjected to a really bad colonial regime by the Belgians, and then were further screwed around with after independence by various countries, and their own thugs.

Then that's all here : https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-part-6a-the-points-based-system

From what I can decipher, UK immigration will prioritize requests by three categories, Highly Skilled Workers, Work Permit Holders and Family Members. Pretty sure that's self-explanatory. Otherwise you just fall under General and your request goes through the legal process. Once accepted you are allowed to settle for 5 years until you get probationary citizenship, then you can earn full citizenship through on a point-based system which rewards civic works. (Borders, Citizenship and Immigration 2009)

From what I can see there is nothing there to deny entry to someone based solely on his country of origin. You'll have to prove that the person has a criminal background.

Of course, we don't "need" more Haitians, and we actually don't need more Norwegians here either--there are plenty here already. Besides which, the US would now be a step down for the Norwegians.

Immigration patterns have a history. In the 19th century, Europeans were favored over all others, Europeans didn't just show up here, a lot of them were recruited in Europe. At the time, a major population infusion was needed to populate, cultivate, and work in the western 60% of the country. Europeans remained most favored until early in the 20th century, when we decided that there were too many eastern Europeans here. Then after WWII, there were a couple of major changes, shifting favored status to people south of the Rio Grande. Later on this was changed again, opening more places for Asians, and various Africans, currently West Africans.

It should be noted that all the large batches of immigrants, whether European, African, Asian, or South Americans have almost always resulted in friction with prior arrivals and nattering by political elites. Relatively recently arrived and comfortably settled Northern European immigrants weren't thrilled with all of the Ukrainian Jews and Italians getting off the boat in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Later on the conflicts were between Italians and Puerto Ricans, and so on. Today Italians, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Russians, etc. are the establishment. Mexicans, Hmong, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indians, etc. the earlier wave. The new arrivals currently upsetting the apple cart locally are from Somalia and Burma (not the Rohingya). In this state it's the Karen people from Burma, or Myanmar. In a while they too will be the earlier wave of immigration.

Really, the US doesn't need any more immigrants at all. There are enough people here to meet labor needs (and then some) and to keep the demographics reasonably stable. From a global warming point of view, the more people who live like Americans, the worse it is for the global climate.

New York City, which is probably the only part of the US that Trump (and quite a few of the political elite) knows well--if that, even--is becoming too expensive to absorb new immigrants from poor countries. It's a culturally rich stew, of course, but poor people have a hard time making it in NYC because of rising rents and the other usual costs.

thanks for finding the information.

Learning Latin wouldn't have helped. They speak Spanish, Portuguese, and an assortment of Amerindian languages. Some even speak English without an Australian accent--always a plus. — Bitter Crank

>:O >:O >:O - that's precisely the point. They are such idiots that they think that Latin is the language of Latin America...

This is the first time in my life feeling ashamed for being an American. What Trump said today was something only authoritarian dictators do. Shit like this does not fly in any type of democracy. — Posty McPostface

Are you kidding? Never heard of Vietnam?
What about supporting Saddam through nine years of war with Iran, which strengthened the Theocracy?
What about continuing to support Saudi-Arabia and Israel despite constant and persistent human rights abuses??
All this is okay but you are shamed for the first time by a obviously megalomaniac, narcissistic, moron, who was voted in as a desperate attempt to change SOMETHING in a democratic system hind-bound by corporate interests?
What about the other so-called democratically elected establishment whores; Bush, Clinton, Obama, ad nauseam?

This is the first time in my life feeling ashamed for being an American. What Trump said today was something only authoritarian dictators do. Shit like this does not fly in any type of democracy. — Posty McPostface

Stop being ashamed, or at least, find something worthwhile to be ashamed about.

Trump isn't America. Obama isn't America. Kennedy isn't America. Reagan isn't America. America is a polyglot, cosmopolitan mix of many people who mostly get along pretty well together. The President is never equivalent to the country. Neither are Representatives, Senators, Supreme Court judges, etc. They are a piece of America in the same way that everybody else is.

I can't recommend Fire and Fury because it really isn't that well written. But several things are said about Trump that seem to conform to reality:

• The man doesn't read much of anything, and apparently hasn't read much of anything for quite a long time. Yes, he has received higher education, but that was about 50 years ago. 50 years is plenty long to lose one's mental edge.
  
• The man watches TV for most of his information. People who watch a lot of television news get a very skewed view of the world, especially on cable news, which runs all the time.
  
• The man is inelegant, something of a slob. That is not a character flaw, it's a flaw in manners, especially for a position which is supposed to be characterized by very good manners. But Trump isn't the first president who was inelegant.
  
• Trump may be quite rich, he may be involved in a lot of real estate, but I don't get the impression he was deeply involved with nuts and bolts management. That's OK for real estate operators. One can hire nut/bolt staff to take care of the details. But he is in a position where nuts and bolts matter, and he isn't prepared.
  
• He is reported to have a very short attention span. This is problematic for people in jobs like Leader of the Free World who need to track major issues all day long, just about every day. He probably feels very overwhelmed, as no doubt he is.
  
• He's used to being insulated from sturm and drang. Rich people can do that. Unfortunately for Trump, the White House is Strum and Drang Central. He's going to be pelted with S & D whether he likes it or not.
  
• As a rich man, Trump is used to doing what he feels like doing. What's the point of getting rich if you can't at least hire a hooker if you feel like it. So he had sex with a porn star. Big deal. It's just that hiring hookers and bedding porn stars (and then later paying them a bag full of money to shut up about it) is discordant with being a public figure who is supposed to be clean enough for family viewing.

I loathe Trump and his whole class, but really, let's stop being shocked, SHOCKED!!! when he behaves the way everybody who didn't vote for him predicted he would behave.

I loathe Trump and his whole class, but really, let's stop being shocked, SHOCKED!!! when he behaves the way everybody who didn't vote for him predicted he would behave. — Bitter Crank

When we stop being shocked, Trump and his followers will have won.

So how is it determined which immigrants to accept and which to reject? First come, first served? Most plausible sounding sob story? Parts missing? What? — Bitter Crank

I believe they're allowed in if either they can prove they can support themselves or if they come from a country it would be dangerous to send them back to.

No ceiling on admissions?

I don't think so, but I think there are plans to place a cap on low skilled workers. Not sure if it includes refugees. It'll likely use the points-based criteria used elsewhere, which although uses English language skills, doesn't care about country of origin.

Aren't leaders supposed to set an example? And to be reliable? ...?

Promoting the sentiment expressed by calling places "shitholes" shifts focus away from (or deprioritizes) helping out, for example. It's to be avoided/expelled, which (incidentally, unsurprisingly) affects people. Sheep that flock to defend Trump's expression then happily propagate such a trend.

Oh well. I guess the future will tell what Trump's leadership brought to the table.

If the economy were dynamic enough and the government were not so dead against serving the people, it would be win-win to have more people. More people more tax, more growth more of everything.
But the government seems hell bent on destroying the public services like education and roads necessary to build the economy.