If there is an 'immigrant' who has failed to integrate in America, it's Donald Trump
Why does Donald Trump hate America so much? What is it about this German-American that makes him think he can tell native-born citizens what to say and how to behave?
“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,” Trump tweeted.
Trump sounded like he just noticed some new phenomenon of Congress telling the executive branch how to behave. Let’s hope he doesn’t know about the Tea Party.
Now it is true that one of the “Progressive” women he’s referring to is an American citizen who was born in Somalia. Tucker Carlson of Fox News has noticed this same telltale sign about the member of Congress who has dared to be critical of the administration.
But the other three were born in this country, where sadly the government is indeed “a complete and total catastrophe”.
Trump is unfortunately correct when he says their government is “the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all)”.
Because it’s his own government and it barely functions. Everyone in Washington – especially the poor British ambassador – has said as much.
“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,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, apparently talking about a group of American members of Congress, including those who were born in the Bronx, Detroit and Cincinnati.
That’s the problem with immigrant families like the Trumps. They have no respect for our traditions and our elected representatives.
They hate our freedoms so much that they want to turn us into some kind of European dictatorship like they used to have back home. When they talk about our God-given constitution, they sound like they haven’t even bothered to read the Cliff’s Notes version.
On Friday Trump insisted that he was immune from all that Russia-related stuff because his own attorney general said he didn’t break the law. Which must be how these immigrants think the law works where they come from.
“Take a look at one other thing,” Trump told reporters, explaining how there was no way he could be charged with obstruction of justice. “It’s a thing called Article Two. Nobody ever mentions Article Two. It gives me all of these rights at a level that nobody has ever seen before. We don’t even talk about Article Two.”
Article Two of the constitution has been around for a while – as long as the constitution, in fact. If nobody has ever seen it before, that nobody must be an immigrant from a country without a constitution.
It’s true that Article Two establishes the office and powers of the presidency. It also talks about a pesky thing called impeachment.
But what can you expect from these newcomers, fresh off the boat with immigrant wives called Melania and children with foreign names like Ivanka? All they want to do is hobnob with foreign leaders, instead of hanging out with real American members of Congress.
Give them an inch and they’ll take away our all-American first amendment rights.
“To me, free speech is not when you see something good and then you purposely write bad,” Trump said to a group of rightwing nutjob social media hacks at the White House last week. “To me, that’s very dangerous speech and you become angry at it. But that’s not free speech.”
Trump purposely talk bad, like immigrants do. He also thinks free speech is happy speech and bad speech is angry speech.
Which pretty much sums up his attitude to the four Democratic members of Congress who just happen to be women of color, exercising their first amendment rights as citizens and their Article One powers as members of the legislative branch. He happy, they angry.
Some people say that Trump’s racism is becoming more obvious and obnoxious as we near the 2020 election.
Those people have clearly forgotten how Trump built his 2016 campaign on racism against President Obama, Mexicans and immigrants in general.
Those people have also forgotten Trump’s incompetence and indifference in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. And they have ignored his policy of punishing families and especially small children at the southern border for the last two years.
They can’t remember his complimentary comments about the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville who wanted to rid the country of Jews, or his less complimentary comments about immigrants from what he called “shithole countries” that just happen to be majority black and brown.
The only part of Trump that is becoming more obvious is his oblivious disregard of his own sorry state.
Sunday’s tweetstorm was of course intended to troll the Democrats and drive a wedge between the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the four progressive members of Congress, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who suggested that Pelosi was disrespectful about singling them out for criticism.
But instead of splitting apart the Democrats, Trump has done what only Trump can do: unite the opposition in sheer disgust.
Now all Democrats stand together in mutual respect and in condemnation of the cack-handed man who claims to be commander-in-chief.
There was a time, before January 2017, when presidents and prime ministers celebrated immigrants and diversity as one of the defining strengths of their countries. Now our leaders pretend their own families have nothing to do with immigrants.
Soon we’re going to have to watch a German-American president playing footsie with a British prime minister who was born in New York, with Turkish and Russian roots, who is actually named Boris.
With all these immigrants around, it makes you wonder why we can’t find any real white nationalists to play the racism card any more. All these foreigners are taking the jobs away from our pure-bred bigots. They ought to go back to where they came from.
Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist
