The Top Story In The Country Is Our "President’s" Unhinged Racism-- A Guest Post By Michael Keegan

Michael Keegan is the president of People for the American Way. He sent a letter to his board members today and I asked him if I could run parts of it as a guest post and he agreed. The subject line of his e-mail was "shithole countries." And the story isn't just the top story in America; it's the top story worldwide. "There is no other word one can use but 'racist,'" the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said at a briefing in Geneva. "You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as 'shitholes,' whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome." You can't? I bet Trump's base was... not offended, not even a little. Michael Keegan:

Trump ranted against protections for immigrants from "shithole countries" countries, referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations, while lamenting that we didn’t have more immigration from countries like Norway.

The reports come near the end of a week in which Trump’s ignorance and petulance were glaringly on display.

In response to the release of Fire and Fury, a book that seriously challenges his fitness for office and ability to do the job of president, Trump held a meeting with lawmakers from both sides to discuss immigration which was clearly nothing more than a PR stunt to convince the press that he was up for the job … afterwards, Trump talked about how the meeting and, more specifically, his performance in the meeting received great "reviews" by the press as "incredibly good," and said that he’d received letters from news anchors calling it "one of the greatest meetings they’ve ever witnessed."

And yesterday, as the House of Representatives was gearing up to vote on the extension of government surveillance powers, Trump tweeted his disdain for the bill, which his White House actually supports, citing it as the basis for supposed Obama administration spying on the Trump campaign-- itself another wild Trump claim that has never been backed up by any evidence.

Quite simply, what we are witnessing from this president is truly terrifying. But perhaps even more terrifying is that as Trump continues to shock the country by sinking to new lows, the loyalty of his core supporters seems unshakable. The sentiments expressed by Trump supporters last night and today around the Internet, in response to the “shithole” comments, all seem to hit the same notes:

• Trump is only saying what "REAL Americans" are all thinking…
• At least he’s honest, which is better than typical politicians…
• Trump is just telling the un-sugarcoated truth and shunning political correctness…
• Hillary would still have been way worse, and is guilty of worse…
• The immigrants from those countries are not contributors to the US-- they only suck up tax-funded services and are hostile to our values…

We’re seeing the dangerous impact of a president that openly demonizes immigrants and communities of color-- even the countries their ancestors came from … the policies of the Trump administration and the Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions are disastrous enough, but when the president is so reckless with his words, it emboldens and gives license to potentially violent racists and hatemongers.

We’ve already seen what happened in Charlottesville and elsewhere, and some might wonder how it is possible that Trump has not learned his lesson by now. But that’s the thing, Trump has learned … when the president disparages immigrants, calls Nazis "fine people," or tweets Islamophobic propaganda from far-right hate groups, these are not gaffes or mistakes-- they’re his true beliefs and his strategy.