Trump Favors Immigrants From Norway Over Those From Africa – Is that Racism?

The initial outrage over this sentiment was sparked by the purportedly vulgar way in which the President expressed it.

[The various ways in which the term is depicted in the media is ludicrous!  For the more discreet outlets, the spelling omits a few letters with no doubt left as to how to fill in the blanks.  It’s like presenting an easy crossword puzzle for the viewer.   And then there are the “CNNs” which are boldly blunt with the sub-heading while the news anchors modestly refuse to utter the vulgarity.]

But the outrage was quickly supplanted by condemnation of the substance of the remark.  To critics, it was another example of Donald Trump’s racism.  (Anyway, the President’s penchant for “undignified” pronouncements has long been on display.)

On one level, the President’s comment referred to the living conditions in certain countries from which some American immigrants come.  And since the referenced countries were non-European, the comments could fairly be considered an expressed preference for immigrants sharing America’s “Western culture”.  In that sense, the President might have been attacking fashionable multiculturalism.

But the media generally ignored that explanation (which can be debated on that basis), noting that the subject countries  were populated by black and brown people.  So, of course, racism was the motivation for what Trump said.

Whether the President is a racist (a much abused term which used to mean deep prejudice that members of another race are inferior or worse), I do not know.  But it’s not an “of course” answer. Donald Trump, after all, a former supporter of liberal candidates and causes used to be in the good graces of New York City’s intelligentsia.

Donald Trump certainly has flaws as a person – and as our President.  But doesn’t his conduct deserve fair consideration?

Yet the media’s hatred of the man is so powerful he rarely receives it.