Trump's foul mouthed, racist blather is not surprising

By SJ Otto

Is it really that surprising that President Donald Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as "shithole countries" during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House?

The comment has been reported by a Democratic aide briefed on Thursday's meeting, according to NBC News.

It is no surprise that many politicians this week have labelled Trump a racist. And some people seemed shocked to hear our president use profanity.

I am not shocked at the profanity. I really don't care and I agree it is they way a lot of common people talk. After a year of Trump being in office it is no real surprise to find he is a racist. And as far as calling Haiti and African nations as "shitholes" he is partially right. Some of those nations are bad places to live.

As for the people of Norway not wanting to come here, Trump is pretty dumb if he can't figure that one out. Norway is a developed European nation. It has a well developed economy. According to National Public Radio:

"From 1870 to 1910 a quarter of Norway's working-age population emigrated, mostly to the United States. You read that right — one-fourth of its workers left the country.

Back then Norway was quite poor. Wages were less than a third of what they were in the United States. And the wave of emigration out of the country quickly benefited those who remained. That's because it reduced the supply of workers in Norway, so those left behind could demand higher wages. And this helped narrow Norway's wage gap with the U.S. by 25 percent over that same 40-year period, putting Norway on the path toward its status today as one of world's most prosperous nations.

Those are the findings of a paper published in European Review of Economic History back in 1997 by two economists. It's considered a seminal work because the authors — Alan Taylor of the University of California Davis and Jeffrey Williamson — then of Harvard University, now professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison — combed through paper archives to piece together the first truly comprehensive picture of wage differentials across European countries and the United States during that time.....

.....Then in 2008 a wealth of new data became available about Norway that added yet another twist to the picture: It turns out that the immigrants that Norway sent to the U.S. during that great migration wave of the 1870s were its poorest and least educated citizens. Researchers were able to determine this thanks to newly digitized census data from Norway. (Other European countries have embarked on similar efforts but Norway, with only around 2 million residents in its early census data, finished the task first. That has made Norway the go-to nation for researchers of historical economics.)"

There is a simple reality that Trump overlooks. European countries, such as Norway, don't have so much deep poverty. A lot of people in Norway have jobs. One big factor a lot of Republicans overlook are that most European countries have free or cheap health care. People in Norway pay almost nothing for their health care. So why do people with decent jobs, living in a first world country with a developed economy similar to the US—and most of all—Mostly free health care want to come here? To put this in simple terms Norway is not a shithole of a country.

But the "shithole" countries are a different story. Most nations in Africa and Haiti are underdeveloped. Many lack resources. Many have had famine and other natural disasters. Wages in those nations are often way below wages in the US. Governments are usually corrupt, with lousy human rights records. There is usually a wide divide between the poor workers and the rich upper classes.

Probably the best example of this is Yemen. Yemen is not an industrialised nation as is Norway. Yemen as of 2013 had a GDP (ppp) of US $61.63 billion, with an income per capita of $2,500.The unemployment rate as of 2003 was 35 percent. Simple logic suggests that people prefer to live in a nation that has a developed economy, adequate jobs and they probably like living in a nation where they can afford health care.

One thing that Trump is not talking much about is that the US is presently sending troops to Africa to interfere in those nation's political affairs. To put things in plain easy to understand English, the US is planning to import the same kind of imperialist intervention it has used in the last 10 years in the Middle East.

Until the Soviet Union fell, Yemen had a Marxist Government in its Southern half and a Western style republic in the North. After the Soviet Union fell North and South agreed to unite into one country. Then the northern government attacked the Southern Marxist army and wiped them out. As with many African countries there is presently an Islamic faction that resemble ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in some ways, called the Houthis  (الحوثيون‎). The US, has been using Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive regimes in the world, as a proxy army to attack the Houthis. Saudi Arabia attacked them with aircraft and with that action that country and the US have deepened involvement in that countries internal struggles. So not only is Yemen a poor country, it is now war torn nation.

Most people don't like living in countries at war since a lot of innocent bystanders get killed. Who wants to live in a country where they can get killed on any day without any warning?  

While I don't really care if the president uses profane language and I agree people want to come here from "shithole countries" the one thing that is apparent is that our president is just not that smart. The answers to his questions are obvious. Many of us already now that Trump is a racist. The problem is he is also an idiot and he is unfit to be president. This latest incident is just one more piece of evidence that he is unfit for the office.

The Asshole Song