"We expect more" from the president of the US: Whole world reacts in horror to Trump

From college students and shopkeepers, to world leaders and international diplomats, the condemnations continue to pile up in the wake of Donald Trump’s vulgar, racists comments about his demand that black immigrants from “shithole” countries be kept out of the United States.

“I’m sorry, but there’s no other word one can use but racist,” United Nations human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said, responding to reporters at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland. “You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘shitholes’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome.”

The crass, racist denunciation of African countries was especially stunning given America’s history of slavery.

“Considering the historical reality of how many Africans arrived in the U.S. during the Atlantic slave trade, this flies in the face of all accepted behavior and practice,” said Ebba Kalondo, the spokeswoman for the African Union.

Former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who’s now president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, said the Trump administration is “leading a race to the bottom on refugees and immigrants that is a betrayal of America’s future as well as of its history.”

Last year, while meeting with African leaders, Trump announced that so many of his friends were going to Africa to “get rich.”

Trump has never enjoyed much support overseas, even among traditional U.S. allies. On Thursday he even canceled a long-planned trip to London, likely because his presence there would certainly spark massive anti-Trump protests in the streets. Trump blamed President Barack Obama for a policy that was actually enacted under George W. Bush.

But even against the backdrop of international contempt, the level of denunciations unfurled the last 24 hours has been remarkable.

And from a Kenya newspaper cartoonist:

#NBONYCdaily Worth noting though what @POTUS thinks of #Africa ..direct flights to a s*******. Cartoon for @TheStarKenya pic.twitter.com/yDgcZ3UB1J

— VICTOR NDULA (@ndula_victor) January 12, 2018

Incredibly, Botswana’s government was forced to summon the U.S. ambassador to clarify whether the nation was regarded as a “shithole” country after years of cordial relations with the U.S., according to the Guardian.

The leader of South Africa’s main opposition party, Mmusi Maimane, described the comments as “abhorrent”.

Duncan Owor, a medical student from Central Kenya, told CNN that the world expects better from an Oval Office occupant.

I think that it’s not the right thing for him to do. He is the president of the United States of America. We expect more of him. We expect him to be an example.

Meanwhile, Kenyan activist and politician Boniface Mwangi noted that “how America elected a narcissist, racist, white supremacist to be their president defies logic.”

Indeed.