That Other Shithole Country

Almost as disheartening as the anti-president himself is his success in corrupting the Republicans in Washington.  It has suddenly struck two of them that he didn't say "shithole countries" at all (describing the homelands of Haitian and African immigrants) and it was a horrible distortion for anyone to say so.  For according to the conservative National Review, he might actually have said "shithouse."

No, you can't make this shit up.  Andy Borowitz, get your shit together.

But as Martin Luther King Day passes, we can at least try to see as clearly as he did.  In this time it is that a lot of Republicans, particularly the antipresident's "base", thoroughly agree with the antipresident's characterization.  Moreover, they are most upset about another shithouse (or shithole) country he didn't name.

That country is the United States of America.  They cannot face that it is rapidly becoming multiracial and more equal.  They would rather side with the avaricious rich out to loot the country including them, as long as they feed their fears of this country.  They have lost more jobs to foreigners who stay in their own countries than they ever will to immigrants, but they don't see them.  

Nothing else matters but that it's not their America anymore.  I imagine some of them are saying this out loud, and many others would agree: This is what happens when you let people from shithole countries in, even if a bunch of them are descendants of unwilling immigrants dragged over as slaves.  Give them equality and what do you get?  A shithole country of your own.

Perhaps President Obama is correct and Fox News covers a different planet, but certainly it covers a different country.  All actual news about the United States as well as the world is fake news because it's not about the country that does not exist that they want to believe they live in.  When you live in a fake country, news about the real country is always fake.

Nobody likes to feel invaded, or powerless, or a victim of injustice.  But beyond empathy, we're looking at a segment of the electorate that hates their own country. Together with those who made deluded or just plain stupid decisions, they voted for the antipresident, and they're more than fine with his reflexive racism and racist vulgarity.

So this is what Republicans are counting on, as they ever more corruptly cozy up to the antipresident, and incidentally, make a dismal authoritarianism more likely: the support of voters who like those in power in the federal government, but hate the shithole country that government is supposed to govern.