When President Trump tweeted Sunday that “‘Progressive’ Democrat congresswomen” should “go back” to the countries they came from, the vapors swept through the political class and media. Granted, the tweet was crude. But the delivery should not invalidate the point.
Both parties condemned the tweet. And journalists, who can never find anything a Democrat says to even be mildly objectionable, or untrue, predictably responded as if Trump had hung a portrait of Hitler in the Oval Office, which is how they react nearly every time he opens his mouth or fires off a tweet. The backlash was more overheated than the tweet.
For the record, here’s the tweet in its entirety:
“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
First off, if he’s referring to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley, known as “The Squad,” only one was not born in the U.S. — Omar is from Somalia. Trump hurt his credibility right away.
But the core of the message is this: If these lawmakers who want to replace our liberal economic system with socialism are so smart, they need to show us how their ideas would fare in impoverished nations that are pumping refugees who are looking for better lives into the U.S. Once that’s achieved, they’re welcome to return to America and use their experience to fix this country.
Another View: Donald Trump: Graceless Under No Pressure
However, they won’t succeed. Trump knows this. No nation has ever pulled itself up through socialist policies. This critically important point, though, is lost because of all the noise in the tweet.
Also falling victim to Trump’s bombast is the inescapable reality that the Democratic Party has become a hate-America, or at least a hate-American-principles coalition. The harping about how racist, bigoted, unjust, and economically inequitable this country is seems to never end. Yet the tender victims and self-appointed advocates who make these assertions could not have succeeded anywhere else in the world as they have here. Worse, they are rewarded for their hostility toward the last, best hope on Earth by their party and a compliant media.
One blogger has suggested what Trump did was raise what had been a closing window on “ideas that are allowable in public discourse.” No argument there. But he should have argued with more finesse. He was yelling too loudly for most to hear him.
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All of these women’s stock in trade is their “otherness”, they play at being victims due to their ethnicities, Sandy Cortez becomes “Alexandria OCASO-CORTEZ, playing up her LAHTEENAH heritage, and pandering, Tlaib gleeful in her Muslim disparagement of US law, and Pressley boringly playing the usual race card (“I’m jus a po black chile, persecuted, all blacks must agree that we are victims, black voices, black voices”). But now they want to split hairs about their American bona fides. They are American In Name Only: AINOs, rejecting Constitutional law some of them swore to uphold, and embrace communism.
Wrong. He said it exactly how it needs to be said. Take your feelings elsewhere. We dont need you. This is a civil war you dolt. New rules. Your antiquated approach to diplomacy has no place in this fight.
im with K on this one, They made their heritage an issue, not trump. If they don’t like that he exploits that for his own gain, they shouldn’t have been parading it around and using it to attempt to lord over others.
President Trump’s message needed to be said. There was no ‘right’ way to do it. Nor was there a wrong way.
If the ‘squad’ doesn’t like America they can; (a) use their role as Congressmen to change the laws; or (b) leave. Since they don’t seem capable of (a), then I suggest that they implement (b) ASAP and make room for others who may actually like America.
If I get a tan, is it then practical for me also to whine incessantly about not being a billionaire?? About my not being in charge of the treasury??
After all, liberals have stated that race is only a social construct, as such it can change whenever I want it to.
Trump said it about right: America, love it or leave it.
At least he yelled…
I’m looking for leadership, for people to admire for their virtues, and for advice to follow to make myself and my country better. I’m going to vote in the next election. The Democrats failed the test. All they do is tell me how horrible this country and its social, economic and political system is (and always was.)
I ask: Compared to what?
Some Democrat’s utopian vision of America as it could be, and arguably, as it therefore should be?
According to whom? There are an infinite number of individuals to be effected by this discussion, each individual has a life, and should have a voice. We are obviously engaged in an argument over fundamental human values and fundamental human rights. Therefore we need begin by identifying those specific values, objective and subjective, and the specific human rights if we are to reach agreement. We need to find what works.
This was the task of philosophy. This task required the best application of each individual’s rational faculty. This task has involved millions of humans during thousands of years and starts anew with each new generation. We need to identify: What works.
I have a polite suggestion to simplify the task and the discussion needed to reach it.
If you are dissatisfied with the United States, as it presently exists, show me a better country
Let each side (there are more than two sides) in the argument point to a country somewhere that actually embodies what they advocate. My solution requires that we compare and contrast only those countries that actual exist. The Utopian daydreams of the past represented speculation detached from actual reality, in reality, they were unnatural and when actualized, became unachievable nightmares.
Show me a better country than the United States, despite the faults of some of its inhabitants in the past and present. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution speak for us, the U.S. We invented political equality, we rejected radical equality, we defend the right of the individual to choose to be different, not only unequal in many ways, but also to strive to be better today than yesterday, and perhaps even better that our neighbor in some way.
And allow me to pro-offer my apologies if what I now suggest seems immoderately rude by the current standards of political correctness. Some things just need to be said.
If you do find a better country, why don’t you just go there? We have about 21 million illegal immigrants here in the U.S. who had the strength of their convictions. They were guided by the Lamp of (limited) Experience. They were drawn here by the what the Statue of Liberty represented, a concrete form of social, economic and political Liberty. God bless them, they’re just like my immigrant ancestors in so many ways.
And if you can’t find a better country, why didn’t you go to nearby Nicaragua, Cuba, or Venezuela, or distant Syria, Palestine, Somalia or Communist China? You might try to convince those people to be more like us. If you are a citizen of the U.S. you can always come back and tell us what you experienced. You might also learn to appreciate what we have here, and almost lost under the previous administration. Think about it.
Actually, Trump said the right things and the right way. He knew full well how the comments would be received by the left. He knew they would call him a racist. He knew Pelosi would defend the 4 horsefaces of the apocalypse…he just skillfully defined the agenda of the democratic party to the voters. The American people are sick and tired of the racist accusation being thrown about for every single comment made by Trump…and they’re sick of hearing the radical nonsense spewed by these 4 morons. Pelosi defending these ‘women’ aligned her with them. THAT, in and of itself, will spell disaster for the left. Trump knows social media and plays it like a fine violin…
It was a lot of things, but “racist” isn’t one of them. I’m getting tired of the Left’s reflex of immediately calling everything racism.
Give me a break. I sure hope I&I isn’t going the way of National Review and other failed Never Trumper stooges. Trump is baiting the dems into self-immolation.