One problem that inevitably comes with living in a hypercivilized country is that speaking the truth bluntly is frowned upon.
There are good reasons for that, and in principle, I agree. You don't tell a proud parent their infant looks like a worm, their child is below average, or their wife looks like a horse.
Social norms like that generally help maintain civility, and some things should only be said among friends.
But those rules are only pro-social if we don't also make decisions based on polite falsehoods. For instance, a college admissions officer shouldn't actually enroll that below-average student just to avoid offense, and we should pretend that all people on the "intersectional ladder" are truly victims.
When we expect politicians to be "diplomatic," we assume everyone in the room knows the truth and is only being polite. But when polite falsehoods become articles of faith that everyone is supposed to act on, what was pro-social becomes deadly to the body politic.
It may not be polite for Donald Trump to call certain countries "s**tholes," but it was necessary to do so because we had crossed the line — long ago — from pretending to believe they were good and decent to acting like they really were fine places filled with great, hardworking people. When we import Haitians or Somalis based on the falsehood that they will become doctors, lawyers, and engineers and not wards of the state, it's actively harmful.
Hi Medhi, Why didn’t you move to Somalia if it is such a paradise? Please articulate the reasons you chose the West & not a country run on the values & laws of an 8th century goat herder. I’ll wait.
— Stacey (@ScotsFyre) October 22, 2026
Still, the intelligentsia gets its panties in a bunch (a very politically incorrect statement) when Trump calls Somalia a s**thole, he is doing what is necessary. When everybody pretends the emperor is magnificently clothed, the boy who shouts "He's naked" is the hero. Lots of people may be upset with him, but they are wrong, and he is right.
I've been criticized more than a few times for calling Minnesota's fraud and gang problems a Somali problem; that makes me "racist," I am told.
Except it is true, and telling the truth is the predicate to acting on the truth.
The United Kingdom looked away from the rape gang problem because they wanted to avoid the inevitable noticing of the fact that it was Muslim migrants and their children doing the raping. They pretended it didn't happen because the alternative was being "undiplomatic."
But diplomacy exists to achieve goals, and ignoring a problem is not the solution. Being kind and generous becomes suicidal empathy when taken too far. That's why, during interventions, even a person's loved ones come down like a ton of bricks.
So when cultural elites shudder at Trump's bluntness, it is they who are actually being antisocial, and Trump who is pro-social.
Not that Trump's bluntness is always an asset. He can be unnecessarily nasty. But more often than not, his nastiness serves the public good. Some things need to be said, and few people are willing to say them.
When the president called Haiti a s**thole country, the entire elite turned on him. When he called out illegal alien rapists and murderers, Blue City mayors and Blue State governors acted shocked and released these predators out onto the streets to prove how compassionate and virtuous they are.
Most times — when people are rational and act on common sense — we can sand the rough edges off in service of politesse. But when you are fighting people who are hiding reality, that luxury is gone.
Telling the truth, bluntly, is the only avenue.