Everyone Hates Trump, Right?

We are now immersed in a s***storm over President Trump’s alleged “s***hole” comment. The Democrats, more than ever, are convinced that voters will express their revulsion toward Trump by awarding them the House in November, and perhaps the Senate as well. Maybe so. On the other hand…

President Trump denies using the word “s***hole.” So who, exactly, says that he did? Who knows? The source is, as usual, anonymous. Presumably it was one of the Democrats who attended the meeting on immigration, but we don’t even know that for sure. If no one is willing to stand up like a man (or woman) and say, “I was there, I heard what was said, and Trump described Haiti as a ‘s***hole country,'” why should be believe the story? If it’s true, why is the source anonymous?

It strikes me that something like half the stories that dominate the news aren’t news at all, they are more properly classified as rumor, based on things allegedly said by people who are not identified. I don’t think we can even imagine what a newspaper looked like if it stopped reporting stories based on anonymous sources.

Meanwhile, the story about what Trump supposedly said is shifting. Jake Tapper tweets that his source says the “s***hole” reference wasn’t to Haiti, but to unspecified African countries. Whatever. There is not much point in fine-tuning allegations by anonymous sources.

President Trump has been tweeting, too:

The Democrats have, as usual, gone ballistic over the president’s alleged crude language. But none of them, as far as I have seen, has tried to answer his question: why do we need more poor, unskilled immigrants from Haiti, or from various African countries?

Given the unremitting hate directed against President Trump by the Democratic Party press, Americans must all have turned against him, right? Seemingly not. The latest Rasmussen Poll predates the “s***hole” hysteria, but it shows Trump spiking up a bit, to 46% approval versus 53% disapproval, about the same numbers President Obama generally registered.

A reader asks a good question: “Would it make a difference if he’d said ‘hellholes’? How else would liberals describe these God-forsaken places?” And why are so many residents of these places anxious to emigrate to the U.S.? The same reader, a Boston native, suggests that Trump may be saying, however crudely, what most Americans believe: “Boston, 1974, Louise Day Hicks: ‘She Says What You Think.'” That is indeed how a great many people view President Trump.

UPDATE: Dick Durbin, a thoroughly dishonest character, now apparently stands by the “s***hole” comment.

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