Michael Wolff’s now famous book quotes people who suggest that President Donald Trump is, among other things, nuts. His accusers, of course, exhibit only the most consistent rationality, sense of proportion and solid connection to reality. Er, right.
Consider. Trump allegedly called Haiti and El Salvador, along with other African nations, “sh*tholes” and asked why so many of their citizens had ever been permitted to enter America.
Cue uproar in which Trump’s remarks were denounced as racist by the UN, the African Union and of course the massed ranks of the western liberal intelligentsia who went into narcissistic meltdown (the more evil they paint Trump as being, the more virtuous they think they appear to be).
Leave aside the dispute over whether he actually used those words. Let’s assume he did. Were they unbecoming to a President of the United States? Yes of course they were. Were they racist? No of course they weren’t. Calling a place a sh*thole is not to disparage its inhabitants. On the contrary, it may suggest they’re to be pitied for having to endure such conditions.