Here's the latest from our fully lucid and astute former president:
Trump: Thousands and thousands of people coming from all over the world. Yesterday, they had many from the Congo. Welcome to the Congo people because and where do you come in the Congo? pic.twitter.com/qLLjn4b5HR
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 18, 2024
Idiocy aside, there are two serious things to say about this. First, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is probably the closest thing we have to a hell on earth. If there's any country in the world we should take refugees from, it's Congo.
The second is this:
Donald Trump is no stranger to refugees from Congo. Biden may be a little ahead, but Trump admitted 8,300 per year when he was president. I don't imagine he remembers this anymore, but he did.
It's even printed out for him, yet he still says what he thinks Congo is, a dance.
I'm wondering who is impaired here - Trump said nothing about Congo being a dance.
I also did not hear anything indicating impairment. This is how people talk. It does suggest he is not reading from a teleprompter though.
Finally, Congo is not a place we should be importing lots of people from. When you import people you also import culture.
The DRC had 95MM people in 2021. By now well over 100MM. Easily 75% of them would move here if they could bring family and have access to a basic US "You won't starve" safety net.
If we import 75MM Congolese we will not magically turn them into Americans. They will turn a big chunk of America into the DRC. In the same way, if one day all 300MM Americans were magically transported to the DRC, within a year you would have a functioning government and begin the long path of development at a breakneck speed.
If one day all Republicans were magically raptured to Mars, they would find it a breathtaking experience.
You realize that, at the rate of 10,000/yr., it would take a century for even a million Congolese to arrive? And that the ones still living by then would be maybe two-tenths of a percent of the population, assuming no increase in the total population? Changing the culture gonna be one heavy lift.
Kevin wants us to take MORE refugees from DRC. How many more?
In general, we should accept immigrants because they add value to the US. Most Congolese will not. They will come with little or no education and bad habits developed from living in a bad place.
A small number is fine - like a drop of milk in black coffee they will be absorbed. In large numbers they will be an ongoing multigenerational problem.
"In general, we should accept immigrants because they add value to the US. Most Congolese will not."
You can just tell by looking at them. Black skin. Nappy hair. Thick lips. Broad noses.
Smarter trolls, please.
How about we deport your racist ass and trade it for a dozen Congolese who will likely get jobs and be far more useful than you.
Let me guess... you have spent exactly zero time living or doing business in sub-saharan Africa ACS have no idea what the people, governments, and culture are like.
Let me guess... you have spent exactly zero time living or doing business in sub-saharan Africa ACS have no idea what the people, governments, and culture are like.
Heh.
"Shithole countries" is shorter and easier to say.
Not nice
whitesnowy countries like, say, Norway.Actually incorrect.
I have spent substantial time in Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia.
They have different problems and issues. For example, Pakistan has a very strong educated college graduate class, but totally dysfunctional politics and rampant corruption (you can pay a policeman to kill someone for under USD 1,000 if you know the right policeman). On the other hand, Nigeria and Kenya have very low levels of education - qualified middle managers make more than in Pakistan because there are so few such people and their prices get bid up.
I don't believe you.
Shrug. Don't know how to prove it. I've got the visas in my passport, a yellow fever vaccination card, and bottle full of malaria prophylactics in my travel bar that I refill as necessary. I love Chicken Republic and much prefer it to KFC.
Do you even know what Chicken Republic is?
Maybe you shouldn't tout your qualifications if you don't know how to prove them?
Nigerians are among the very highest-achieving U.S. immigrants.
Yes. They are also among the highest educated US immigrants.
Do not confuse the tiny fraction of 1% that manage to immigrate to the US (especially legally) with the unwashed masses. This is like comparing the American expats you meet in China and Japan with randomly chosen Americans. Very different kinds of people.
Current illegal immigrants are closer to random people, but usually still highly motivated and able to navigate an expensive, complex and dangerous process to get to the US.
The easier and less selective you make immigration, the closer your immigrant population gets to the average of the country you are drawing from.
"(you can pay a policeman to kill someone for under USD 1,000 if you know the right policeman)."
I and pretty sure that this holds true in the US as well. Maybe you'll have to pay $5,000.
Congolese immigrants to the US do not live or do business in sub-Saharan Africa.
Now, let me guess... you have met exactly zero Congolese immigrants, have no idea how well they adapt to American society, and have no idea what their views on the U.S. people, government, and culture are like, right?
That's right... and I have never been to the DRC. (BTW, do you know there are two Congos in Africa? Very different countries.)
I have been to many other countries in Africa and I know African expats / immigrants in many non-African countries since these people are heavily involved in business with Africa.
For example, if you are having a beer with a Nigerian inside or outside Nigeria and you ask him why Nigeria isn't a better place the almost universal answer is "Because of Nigerians."
The simplest summary is that culturally, Nigerias are trained to slaughter the cow rather than milking it. A Nigerian in a position of power steals and takes bribes as much as he can for as long as he can rather than trying to maximize long term returns. You can argue about the reasons for this, but the basic fact is undisputed. For example, only about half of Nigeria's oil production gets sold officially with the money going to the government. The rest gets diverted in an thousand different places to line the pockets of a thousand different government officials.
DRC is similar together with a tendency towards violence (for a variety of reasons) that is much less common in Nigeria. I can travel around Lagos on my own using Uber and InDrive. In many areas this is even safe at night. I would NOT try that in Kinshasha.
Are you consciously channeling the Chinese Exclusion Act of 100 years ago or do you just feel like this about anyone who doesn’t look like you?
No. I feel like this about anyone who does not have an education (less than half of DRC adults have graduated high school) and who comes from a country where corruption is ubiquitous and people rely on self help rather than courts and police to resolve disputes.
I do not think you have any understanding of how things work in these countries. When you arrive at the airport you need to have a fixer who pays a monthly bribe to be able to wait on the pre-immigration side and walk you through and tell the immigration officers not to shake you down. If you get pulled over by the police, you hand them a dollar or two or a beer or some other small present and you get waved on your way. When you travel to another city you hire a uniformed police officer to ride with you in the car and prevent shakedowns on the highway.
When you import these people they initially think things will work the same way here. They go to the DMV and hand the examiner $10 so they will not automatically fail. If they come in small numbers the examiner is shocked, hands back their cash, and they learn not to do that. If they come in large numbers one of them gets hired as an examiner and suddenly he is taking the baksheesh.
I am curious... why do you think the DRC is such a disaster?
a. Cultural issues
b. Genetics of the people
c. Something in the environment (ie. bad water?)
I think it is pretty obviously culture. I don't think bribery and official corruption is genetic.
When you import people, don't you think you import their culture?
"When you import people, don't you think you import their culture?"
That's what they said about German immigrants. That's what they said about Italian immigrants. That's what they said about Irish immigrants. That's what they said about Chinese immigrants.
Smarter trolls, please.
and after all, the last thing we would want to do is import culture from anywhere else, American culture being sublimely perfect in all respects.
Plus, there's no way that somebody motivated enough to leave their home and go somewhere completely new and strange would ever be inclined to, say, absorb anything about the culture of their new home. Poisoning the blood of the country goes only one way, you see.
1. American culture is far from perfect, but I would pick it over Nigerian culture any day. Why do you think Nigeria is so poor despite having lots of young people and tons of natural resources? It is culture.
2. If you actually know immigrants you will know that there is a huge variety. A lot depends on how many immigrants you have from a place and whether they can create an enclave of similar people. If you spread immigrants around so they are a small minority where they live they assimilate - no choice. When you have large enclaves they do not. You can see this anywhere. When I lived in Hong Kong, expats living in Disco Bay were made fun of because they learned about one word of Cantonese per year. But if you lived in Mongkok you had to learn to communicate, eat local food, etc - it was necessary to survive.
"Why do you think Nigeria is so poor despite having lots of young people and tons of natural resources?"
Because for centuries, Nigeria and similar vast resource rich countries have been exploited by those "superior culture" countries to the detriment of the local population.
First through colonialism, and then when that came out of fashion through unregulated capitalism that allowed rich corporations to exploit people and resources unmolested, and via political meddling that encouraged that corruption you mention because that made it easier to exploit the nation.
Go back to your clan Klan buddies you racist MFer.
Um... we did import their cultures.
Are you seriously unaware of the impact of German, Italian, Irish, and Chinese immigrants on US culture?
Now, if you have spent time in Africa, ask yourself how much of the culture their you want to import.
For example, the Netherlands has imported a lot of Eritreans. They are now getting a taste of Eritrean culture. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13097091/Hague-riots-broke-violent-clashes-rival-groups-Eritreans-scenes-saw-police-cars-torched-thugs-throw-rocks-Dutch-cops-use-teargas.html
Corruption is endemic in the US, we just don't call it that. SCOTUS has ruled repeatedly that bribery is perfectly legal as long as the bribe is big enough.
This, of course, is a lie.
Anyone who has spent time in an actual corrupt country knows that corruption in the US is minimal and there is, of course, no such SCOTUS ruling.
‘Welcome to the Congo people because and where do you come in the Congo?“
This is how people talk? Well, my Dad did when he was dying of Alzheimer’s. You think this is somehow coherent?
people skip words. He skipped "from"
Read the first phrase again. He left out more than "from".
Again, if you listen to real speech (not actors reading from scripts or politicians with teleprompters) that is how people talk.
He starts to say "Welcome to the Congo people because..." and presumably means to give a reason and then switches to "And where do you come [from] in the Congo?"
This is a pretty good discussion of the issue. https://qr.ae/ps7EpK
That’s your interpretation. You think you know what he’s talking about. But if it somehow got him in trouble he (or his handlers) would say you were wrong and he meant something else altogether. Sorry, he isn’t Chauncey Gardener, he’s Chance the gardener.
"This is how people talk." This is how magas talk and only magas can understand. 1984 had doublespeak. 2024 has magaspeak.
Sigh... the ignorance is appalling.
https://qr.ae/ps7EpK
So is the racism and the Drumpf normalizing.
People are giving you a hard time here, but I actually appreciate you wearing your racism right out in the open like this. When creeps like you talk about immigration, it's usually hidden behind bullshit.
It's refreshing to see you wear your hood like a proper klansman.
Darling, this isn't about the peoples of Congo...
...and bigotry. Why would the US, with laws and history suddenly not, if we had to teach people those? We do that all the time.
Geez, effin' racism.
Dude. "Congo" sounds BLACK! Blackety-black-black-Africa-BLACK! That's mostly all he knows, that's certainly all his followers know, and he knows VERY well that's all they know!
This is not complicated.
No worries--his base will eat it up.
Congolese an increasingly visible fraction of our admittedly tiny black population. (This is Maine we're talking about.)
French now one of the languages that the immigrant community's free newspaper comes in. But it's not aimed at our increasingly aged Franco-American population.
Our French speakers are increasingly not from Quebec, nor the Portuguese speakers from the Azores. Instead, the Congo, and Angola.
https://www.pressherald.com/2023/05/21/exodus-to-the-pine-tree-state/
Showing my age and musical tastes, I can’t read “Congolese” without thinking of Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.
“For days and nights they battled, the Bantu to their knees
They killed to earn their living, and to help out the Congolese“
RIP Warren Zevon
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner is my favorite Warren Zevon song, and that's saying a lot. Is there a bigger injustice in the world than Zevon still not being in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? (Well, yeah, there are plenty and this is obviously hyperbolic. But it still stinks.)
There are bigger injustices in the world, but I’m not sure there are many bigger ones in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A year doesn’t go by that someone far less deserving doesn’t get in. I really don’t understand it.
It's Donald Trump. Doesn't matter if it's true, false, consistent, or makes sense. If he says it, it's perfect. Just ask Lindsy Graham.
I just finished reading Cobalt Red a few days ago, which concerns the fact that Congo has the “privilege” of sitting on most of the world’s reserves of this element which is critical to rechargeable batteries.
Despite their utter lies to the contrary, all the big consumer-facing companies like Apple and Tesla are getting their material via dangerous and filthy slave and child labor, usually through Chinese intermediaries. If you read this on your cell phone, tablet or laptop, you just contributed to the problem.
Demand change.
Cobalt is also used in all sorts of high performance alloys, including jet turbine blades and artificial joint implants.
If Congo were peaceful and stable they would be razing their rainforests far more efficiently than now for economic gain. Ironically keeping them broken dooms the environment slower.
It also ensures the actual citizens do not get any benefit
Ahh, the mention-specific-clickbait-companies schtick, not the provide-actual-evidence schtick.
Yes, slave labor is bad.
Why don't we do something about it in the US?
When Trump began his run for the presidency he would give speeches like this and I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. As time went on my brain began giving me “translations” much in the manner of the “translations” given when the Fooey spoke in “The Great Dictator”. The amazing thing is how well Chaplin’s parody of Hitler works as a parody of Trump:
https://youtu.be/isLNLpxpndA?si=46SVzj5P7RrlUWhw
I still haven’t read a convincing explanation for why the press (at least at the present time) shrugs at Trump’s mental incapacity but loses its mind if President Biden gets a date or a name wrong.
I’ve certainly read theories: Trump may come across as deranged but not really “old,” Trump’s anger indicates “strength” while Biden’s slow pace supposedly signifies senility, Trump has unconditional support from Fox News and Biden has unconditional support from precisely no one.
What else? I’m sure there are other theories, but I don’t find these or any others entirely convincing. The one and only explanation which I feel genuinely captures the sort of hyperbolic insanity regularly aimed at Biden is that the press genuinely hates him. Why they despise him so deeply I don’t really know. But they do. And they could very well sink him as a result.
Probably because he's boring. They have nothing to do but their jobs which they are actually quite bad at.
There's a reason Biden told them he was giving THEM up for Lent.
The best answer is probably one that Josh Marshall has repeated often: the DC media remains wired for Republicans.
Trump yells a lot and waves his arms around, which the media interpret as "youthful vigor." He wears heavy pancake makeup, which obscures many of the lines, and dyes his few remaining hairs around the edges of his egg-bald pate an unconvincing orange-blonde, which also suggests "youth", and the teevie cameras don't pick up the deception. He's reportedly always hopped up on Adderol.
So what if he needs somebody to help him walk down a ramp and needs both hands to lift a glass? Joe Biden has white hair! His voice is soft and gentle. Whadda wuss! So what if he rides a bicycle, can run up the stairs to Air Force One (and immediately get to his feet, unaided, if he stumbles?) So what if he makes sense? He flubbed a word! A WORD, people!!
Gotta keep the horse race going! If the obvious loser is covered as such, who's gonna click? Who's gonna buy a newspaper?
Sums it up well.
It is hard to know whether Trump is becoming increasingly impaired because he always talked like a child. But this seems to be an odd choice to use to establish that he is impaired, at least from this graph. It appears that when he came in immigration from Congo was at around 10,000 a year, when he left it was down to 5,000 a year. Now it appears to be at 18,000 and rising. While personally I don't see any reason to think that is a bad thing. Trump does not seem off base to suggest that it fell during his time in office and rose when he left office.
There is so much that Trump says that is patently idiotic. It is strange to make use of a case in which the evidence he is idiotic turns on looking at a straight average rather than the directions the numbers move. It is, after all, quite reasonable to take the Biden numbers to be a result of the numbers starting low under Trump policies.
What is it that Trump actually said that made any sense at all to you? I’m guessing you are using an inner interpreter to discern what he is saying. Don’t do that. Just go by the words he used. It’s incoherent and should be discussed as such.
“Talked” like a child?
He IS. a child, a spoiled little brat
Just because it's stupid doesn't mean it's a sign of his mental impairment.
Trump speaks in what his base sees as truth, and what Colbert brilliantly lampooned as "truthiness" way back in 2005 before he was on CBS. It's not about whether it's true or a lie - it's about whether it feels true to the target audience. And stupid or not (and he IS stupid), Trump understands that 100%.
https://www.cc.com/video/63ite2/the-colbert-report-the-word-truthiness
Nope. They are dealing with a new deadlier form of monkeypox. We barely handled the old version. Nope.
People don't cause monkeypox. A virus causes monkeypox.
Congo is the location of the world's biggest cobalt mine. Hunter Biden brokered its sale* to the CCP! THE CCP!!! It was in the New York Post! And cobalt is used in EV batteries! My God, the whole dibolical Biden Crime Family plot is starting to come together.
*By "brokered", the Post means a company in which Hunter Biden may have had a 10% interest bought a minority of the mine from a Canadian firm, and subsequently sold it to the Chinese company which already owned the majority shareholding. Close enough to "brokering" for James Comer!