Because we are a cynical lot, the news staff at the Register wondered what Norway had done to deserve to be singled out by President Donald Trump in his Thursday rant about immigration quotas to the United States.
Mr. Trump decried U.S. policies that allow immigrants from Haiti and countries in Africa, saying he preferred those from Scandinavia.
The overt racism is nauseating. And, sadly, it comes as no surprise.
Mr. Trump has a longtime record of bigotry.
As a bigwig realtor in the 1980s, Mr. Trump called for the execution of the Central Park Five, even after the young men, four black and one Latino, were found innocent.
Then he spent five years with his “birther” movement in an effort to discredit our first black president, Barack Obama, by alleging he was not an American.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals.
And still, he got elected.
And after a year of his presidency, we shake our heads at how far our country’s reputation as a leader of the world has fallen.
Because there’s no way around it, President Trump is a racist, which means he will do things as our leader to oppress minorities, such as:
* Defend white supremacists and neo-Nazis as he did in the Charlottesville, Va., demonstrations;
* Spread Islamophobia by portraying Muslim Americans as untrustworthy;
* Degrade countries like Nigeria by saying their people “live in huts;”
* Expel 200,000 Salvadorans who are here by our grace because of the oppressive gang violence they face at home; and
* Build a wall and policies that will tear law-abiding (and tax-paying) Hispanic families apart.
