On Thursday January 11th, President Trump met with a small, bipartisan group of lawmakers to discuss immigration. In that meeting, during a discussion of the merits of the country-quota based system currently in place, POTUS reportedly asked why the US allows immigration “from shit-hole countries’ like Haiti and those in Africa.
And the blowback began. Celebrities, activists, senators, congresspeople, heads of state, as well as unions of countries have condemned the statement, calling it racist in one way or another. Many have gone further and demanded an apology, as well.
Worse yet for Donald Trump, the story won’t go away. It’s been on top of the news for 8 days. For contrast, within the past five years, former President Obama called Libya a “shit-show”, and Senator Lindsay Graham called Mexico a “hell-hole”. Both were in the news for a day (and most people don’t remember either comment at this point).
The waxing of this conflict, and his paper-thin skin, have unsurprisingly prompted Mr. Trump to respond, albeit in an unusually coordinated fashion. Four days after the remarks, the White House AND the two Trump supporters at the meeting (Senators David Purdue and Tom Cotton) simultaneously began suggesting that the other attendees misheard the President, who actually called the countries “shit-houses”. [This is an old slang word for out-houses.]
But, what was the calculation behind switching from holes to houses? Why make this distinction? Here’s my fantasy about what the Trump team considered as it mulled over potential responses to the blowback from his shitty commentary.
Option A: Deny the original comment.
Option B: Respond generally to the topic but don’t actively deny the comment. (Sarah Sanders would be an excellent point person for this approach.)
Option C: Act as if the words shithole and shithouse are synonyms. This would accomplish two things. First, changing the initial readout would create a distraction from the original comment. There would be a good deal of media attention paid to the seemingly baseless switch, but not necessarily to the comment itself. Second, and at the same time, it would dial down the intensity of the comment and, therefore, the reaction to it. Simply put, likening a country to an anus is a more highly charged declaration than making the same comparison to an out-house.
There is evidence that this strategy is working. The redefinition was endorsed by none other than former President Obama's National Security Council Spokesperson, Tommy Vietor, who is by no account Trump friendly. And this is but one of many examples.
We’re watching to see what happens, and what else POTUS has to say about Shit-Hole Gate, on Twitter...
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