Again, they were born in the US and chances are there is no other country in the world where they could occupy political posts, nor at any point they demonstrated such desire or attachment.

Trump, on the other hand, is the man who promoted birtherism against Obama, whose children were anchor babies for his foreign wives, and who seemingly believes his father was actually born in Germany and thinks this is a compliment or net positive to his own family.

What is the difference between what he said and claiming, for instance, that Black politicians should go back and fix Africa first? Neither chose where to be born, after all.

Do you think that the comments would have been said about a white person?  

It still stings that Amazon didn't come to NY because the minority of people didn't want them.

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

Trump's not wrong when he's saying they come from a country whose government is a complete catastrophe led by the worst, most corrupt and inept people in the world. He just doesn't realize he's talking about his own reign, though.

No he wouldn't.  

People that are white, are treated as if they are more American than people who aren't.  People who are white aren't told to go back to their countries.  

I am sure you genuinely think that "since race isn't mentioned" that it isn't racist, that there's enough ambiguity that you can honestly believe that.  

The problem is, that telling non-white people to go back to where they came from, is practically a cornerstone of racist thought.  

Even if by some miracle, Trump didn't intend for it to be racist.  He still would have stumbled onto what is easily one of the most horrific and insensitive things he's ever said about non-white people.  

>Sounds like he wants them to go back so that they can do some good and then he wants them to return to the US. It doesn't sound as simple as you're making it out to be...

Come on... Seriously...???

As if Trump gives two craps about other country's well-being. He barely gives a crap about his own. Everything he does is self-serving, including his populist tweets and policies.

Every time Trump comes out with some reactionary, ill-thought out garbage you can run your thought experiment of taking any sliver of ambiguity and finessing them into something respectable, but I'm pretty sure nobody is taking them seriously.

It's plain to everyone with a semblance of objectivity what Trump was saying in that tweet given the context, you can play your little games and get the hostile reactions that I'm guessing is your objective but I recommend spending your time in a more constructive way.

It's against the rules, but there are various factors to consider in this particular case.

1. You have an admin tag which is a big mitigating factor for everything you say, so posting in violation of the rules has only a very low chance to have official consequences.

2. A giant exploit in the ruleset is that people aren't going to get moderated for being or acting stupid, so behaving deliberately obtuse is a very viable strategy to rile up other users. Since you've been a rather frequent visitor of political threads, I am sure you've already noticed a few people who do exactly that.

3. Calling out stupidity or a brickwall comes with the real risk of getting moderated while the other party gets off free, so we have an environment where the majority puts up with nonsense. It's not that people are fine with how things work, but rather that there's not really a viable alternative.

4. The internal process of the mod team is bottlenecked, so even obvious instances like Machiavellian getting personally attacked solely based on his username do not necessarily get moderated because there is supposed to be an agreement among multiple moderators and then a head moderator has to sign it off. Problem is that neither of the head moderators has interest in political discussions, so it's possible that nothing is done because of that. Regular moderators aren't granted much, if any, autonomy to make decisions on their own.

Unsurprisingly, I am putting myself at risk of another moderation by stating the above things publicly. But if nothing else, it provides other people the opportunity to hit the Agree button on my post to show that there's a problem.

I do hope that more comes out of it though. I don't think the system will be changed by regular users making suggestions to the mod team (otherwise things would already be better), but as an admin you occupy a different position in the hierarchy of this community. What you say will hold more weight, so it's plausible that things can be improved. If you aren't happy about how things are in political discussions, you are in the enviable position to get something done.

Trump donating his own presidential salary didn't seem self-serving at all...