TAKE IT OFF, TAKE IT OFF, CRIES A VOICE FROM THE REAR
It’s been a quiet week in America, where all the men are strong, all the women are good looking, and all the presidents are very stable geniuses. The week began with FIRE AND FURY and ended with talk of shitholes and porn stars.
I don’t have much to add to the chorus of opprobrium that greeted Donald Trump’s shameful “shithole countries” comment. Just as the problem with “grab ‘em by the pussy” was “grab,” not “pussy,” I hope everyone is clear that the problem with calling Haiti, Africa, and El Salvador “shithole countries” isn’t the word “shithole.” The language Trump used to make his racist point is irrelevant. The problem is the racism itself. Trump is a racist. His defenders are racists. His party is racist. This is known.
As usual, Republicans in Congress don’t care. Most of them will remain silent, while a few of the ones who fancy themselves as bold mavericks will tut-tut before letting the moment pass. But it’s possible that this particular bit of racism, though it is of a piece with many other things Trump has said on the campaign trail and as president, could have some serious consequences in spite of the apathy of congressional Republicans. Here is some interesting demographic information.
· The Republican road to the presidency goes through Florida, which (according to Florida Republican media strategist Rick Wilson) is one of a handful of states that Republicans MUST win in order to keep the White House in 2020.
· There are approximately 300,000 Haitians living in Florida. Campaigning in 2016, Trump promised to be their champion. Now he’s calling Haiti a shithole country and trying to keep Haitians out of the country. Not all of those 300,000 Haitians are eligible voters, but my guess is that those who are will vote Democratic in 2018 and 2020.
· Similarly, there are over a million Puerto Ricans living in Florida. At least 200,000 of them have arrived since Hurricane Maria devastated the island last fall. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, and can vote in Florida if they register there. My guess is that many of them will, and that they’ll remember Trump’s sadistic treatment of Puerto Rico when the 2018 and 2020 elections roll around.
· There are fewer people from El Salvador in Florida – c. 55,000, mostly in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area – but they too are unlikely to look kindly upon Republicans in light of Trump’s shithole remark.
· Remember that Donald Trump won Florida by only 120,770 votes. Republicans don’t have much margin for error, and they’ve been making a lot of errors.
In other news, on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in October, 2016, to keep quiet about an affair (or maybe a one-night stand) in 2006. Trump, of course, denies that any such thing happened. On the other hand, Michael Wolff, in his FIRE AND FURY book, quotes Steve Bannon as saying that Trump’s personal lawyer had paid off “a hundred women.”
Since Donald Trump lies about everything, I’ll take his denial as confirmation of the truth of the story. That’s what happens if you lie all the time. All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall.
While we wait for next week’s adventures, here’s an article about the origin of the word “shithole.”