On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks responded to President Trump’s reported “sh*thole” comment by stating the president lacks “normal human compassion or curiosity” and that the comment fits into a “pattern” of “harsh judgment of — against black and brown people.”
Brooks said of the remark, “I think it’s pretty clearly racist. I mean, it fits into a pattern that we’ve seen since the beginning of his career, maybe through his father’s career, frankly. There’s been a consistency, a pattern of harsh judgment of — against black and brown people. And so, he’s at it again. And I guess I’m reminded first just the way it’s rotting the Republican Party. This is the one thing Republicans — they can tolerate a lot of things in Donald Trump, but the white identity politics, the racial politics, that’s just a cancer. And that’s the one thing they can’t tolerate, but they are — seem to be tolerating.”
He continued, “My other thought is, we’ve been with this guy so long, we forget what, like, a normal, admirable political leader or a human being looks like. And so a normal, admirable human being is curious about the world, and sort of interested in different cultures. El Salvador, Haiti, Nigeria, they’re interesting, has compassion for people from around the world. It’s hard to live in this country and not have admiration and compassion for the immigrants who come here from Africa, from El Salvador, from Haiti, and like the ambassador we just saw. That story — you meet that story every week. And so, to not have any of that normal human compassion or curiosity go through the guy’s head is part of the deeper character flaw here that we have apparently learned to tolerate.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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