ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- You have to hand it to President Donald Trump. His brutally racist comments about Somali immigrants managed to alarm and terrorize a group of people who -- having survived warlords, famine, and marauding gangs -- don't scare easily.

Some former U.S. presidents might have aspired to emulate George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Donald Trump took another path, opting instead to channel George Wallace, David Duke and Archie Bunker.

At a Cabinet meeting, Trump once again pummeled and picked on a group that lacks the power to fight back against the leader of the free world. As Trump sees it, immigrants from Somalia -- which he describes as "barely a country" -- are nothing more than "garbage" that ought to be taken away.

"We don't want them in our country," Trump said. "They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest with you, ok? Someone said, 'Oh that's not politically correct.' I don't care. I don't want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks. And we don't want them in our country. I could say that about other countries, too. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it."

Trump singled out Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. -- a Somali immigrant and member of Congress whom Trump calls "an incompetent person" and a "real terrible person."

What may have set off Trump was a massive case of theft of government funds by fraudsters in Minnesota. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the crooks used a bogus non-profit organization called "Feed Our Future" to bilk state agencies out of as much as $1 billion that was supposed to help feed children. Seventy-eight people have been charged, and 59 have been convicted. The majority are both groups of Somali immigrants.

There are approximately 80,000 Somalis in Minnesota. According to authorities, the majority are law-abiding U.S. citizens

While Trump condemns all Somali immigrants for the bad acts of a few, I can't imagine that he would be comfortable with those on the left issuing a blanket indictment of their own the next time a 21-year-old white male with a racist manifesto and AR-15 assault rifle commits mass murder at a school.

The president can't see beyond color. Actually, it's likely more than that. He is downright obsessed with race, ethnicity, culture, language and foreigners. It all makes him loco.

African American poet and bestselling author Maya Angelou advised: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."

Trump has been showing us who he really is for more than a decade, and yet many Americans still don't want to believe it.

-- In June 2015, when he announced his first presidential bid, Trump condescendingly said Mexico was "sending people that have lots of problems." He insisted that Mexican immigrants were "rapists" who were "bringing drugs" and "bringing crime."

--In January 2018, during a White House meeting, President Trump reportedly expressed frustration that the United States was taking in so many immigrants from "shit hole countries" and not enough from predominantly white countries such as Norway.

-- In December 2023, while running for a second term and speaking to a crowd at a rally in New Hampshire, Trump said immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country."

-- In April 2024, while referencing a 22-year-old nursing student named Laken Riley, who was allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan immigrant who was in the country illegally, Trump said undocumented immigrants were "animals" and "not humans."

-- In September 2024, during a presidential debate, Trump accused Haitian immigrants of snacking on pets. "In Springfield (Ohio) they are eating the dogs," he said. "The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there."

Someone needs to tell Trump that he doesn't have to share with the world every dark and loathsome thought that pops into his infirm and incurious mind. He sounds like the guy who solves the world's problems from a stool at the end of the bar.

Of course, the barstool guy usually lacks the power to fix anything. All he does is complain and play the victim. On the other hand, Trump is the most powerful person in the world. And still, what he likes to do most is complain and play the victim.

Ironically, that is the exact behavior that Trump likes to project onto immigrants from around the world.

Say, maybe America's biggest problem isn't immigrants. Maybe it's the person whom Americans have chosen to lead them.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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