The anti-immigrant focus of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reminds historian Bernard A. Weisberger of shameful past eras that conflict with America’s self-image as a place of refuge for people from many lands.
By Bernard A. Weisberger
It has so far annoyed but not really surprised me that Donald Trump, despite being an obnoxious bully, has defied expectations with a steady rise in the public opinion polls. It may be that his buffoonery and megalomania are simply more attractive to some early voters than rival candidates, with their solemn professions that what pushes them into the grind of campaigning is their dedication to promoting the public welfare.
But I am considerably more than annoyed when Trump puts himself at the head of the armies of the new nativism by using his bullhorn to echo the warnings of the movement’s Cassandras against the supposed “hordes” of undocumented immigrants pouring through our “open southern border.” His point of attack is the so-called “anchor babies”, children of pregnant mothers who supposedly sneak into the United States so that their children will be born here and automatically become citizens.
Billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The hidden, malodorous and unproven subtext is that these children, entitled to the privileges of citizenship, will open the gates to legalizing the entry of family members, swarms of whom will qualify for welfare state entitlement programs, so that they may live in happy idleness at the expense of ¨real” American taxpayers. None of these suppositions has yet been proven by any serious evidence.
So thus far, disgusting enough. But when Trump dipped into the gutter to add to this repertory of lies and half truths one of the oldest and rankest, namely that Mexico was emptying its prisons and asylums to let rapists and thieves run free on our streets (a charge eagerly snapped up by the likes of O’Reilly and Limbaugh, and left unchallenged by many of Trump’s rivals for the nomination) I boiled over. That’s crossing the line that separates debate from shameless indecency.
Historical Background
I am a historian of the United States and have heard it all before, sometimes almost verbatim and no less gross. Our works of history rightly celebrate our role as a land of asylum and opportunity for people from almost everywhere on the globe. It’s a pillar of our cherished self-image as exceptional among nations. But they often overlook or minimize the contrasting truth that there was always stiff resistance to that hospitality.
Listen to this: “America has become the sewer into which the pollutions of European jails are emptied.” Substitute “Mexican” or “Latin American” for “European” and it could be straight out of Trump’s latest eruption. But it’s from a newspaper published in the 1850s by supporters of an anti-Catholic and foreigner-hating movement that began as a secret society whose members were ordered, when asked nosy questions, to say: “I know nothing.”
Eventually, the “Know-Nothings” emerged into the open and organized themselves into a political organization that campaigned in 1854 as “the American Party.”
In that first off-year foray, the new entry won a number of state and local offices and some seats in both House and Senate. The basic glue that held Know-Nothing-ism together was hatred of the alien (especially the Irish). The slither of the Know Nothings into the American Party was a way of “protecting” America from the Pope’s minions and other evil foreign influences.
Happily, 1854 was only a flash in the pan. When the party ran a national ticket headed by so respectable a figure as ex-US President Millard Fillmore, they won only a single state, Maryland.
By the time Abraham Lincoln ran for the Senate in 1858, two years before his presidential campaign, as many as half of the American people were the offspring of Europeans and could not trace their ancestry back to the stirring days of 1776. But if they looked at the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln said in a campaign speech in Chicago, they found the words “all men are created equal” became “the father of all moral principle in them, and they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are.”
This self-evident truth of equal creation became the “electric cord that link[ed] the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men everywhere.” To be American was not about ancestry but to commit oneself heart and soul to the ideal of equality.
Defining Citizenship
A few years later, Lincoln was dead along with some 600,000 casualties of the Civil War, and a radical Republican Congress oversaw writing the Union’s victory into the Constitution via the Fourteenth Amendment. Its opening clause proclaimed, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
That flipped the prewar position, in which state citizenship was necessary to become a United States citizen, leaving room for states to refuse citizenship to “undesirables” like Negroes and foreigners. Now, no state could deny its born or naturalized resident citizens “the equal protection of its laws” or the guarantees of the Bill of Rights.
The Fourteenth Amendment clearly intended to make sure that the newly freed ex-slaves would have their full civil rights, though it would take a Fifteenth to specify that voting was included. The inclusion of children born in the United States to recent immigrants was almost incidental. That is the “error” that the enemies of birthright citizenship aim to correct. They argue that almost no other nations outside the Western hemisphere show such foolish generosity. Somehow, this is one issue on which they are willing to forget or forgo our proud exceptionalism.
Meanwhile, American ports began receiving the first waves of an enormous and transformative mass migration, some 31 million between 1860 and 1930. They represented a “new” immigration: Chinese, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, Syrians, Slovaks, Serbs, Armenians. To many so-called “old stock” Americans, millions of these newcomers were dangerous and unworthy, and to the members of an Immigration Restriction League which included in its number many of “the best people” of New England the immigrants were of the “wrong” religions and nationalities. Poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich explained that through our “unguarded gates” pressed,
a wild motley throng Men from the Volga and the Tartar Steppes Flying the Old World’s poverty and scorn; These bringing with them unknown gods and rites Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.
The same old charges were recycled, newcomers threatened the jobs of Americans; they swelled the statistics of crime, violence and dependency; they clung stubbornly to their religions, customs and languages and could neither absorb nor understand the values of genuine Americans.
Eventually, the gates began to swing shut on unrestricted immigration. There was denial of entry to those convicted of crimes in their home countries, which might include rebellion against tyrannical regimes. Then, rejection for those harboring contagious diseases.
A third barrier, literacy tests, never quite made it into law but in 1921 and 1924, laws were enacted that set overall limits on immigration, divided by “national origins” quotas that favored the descendants of pre-1860 immigrants, while sharply narrowing openings for the children and grandchildren of those who had come later. Asians were barred completely.
But those who squeezed through narrowed gates did what immigrants have always done when given a chance, assimilated the American values of the time, grabbed educational opportunities provided by the public school system, and by the millions took out the naturalization papers that gave them the ultimate step in acceptance, participating in democracy on an equal footing with the snootiest Mayflower descendant. So armed, they entered American politics and, over time, changed it for the better.
An Era of Liberalism
A three-decade period of liberalism following the Depression, World War II and the assumption of an American global presence resulted in a 1965 change to the laws that replaced national origins quotas with others based on family reunification, specially needed skills, and refugee status. They erased the barrier to Asians altogether, setting off a new and continuing wave of immigration, still in progress.
But none of this will continue if the likes of Trump and his allies can help it. The children of that slandered “new” immigration helped to build our cities and dedicated their working lives in mines, mills and factories to make us a mighty industrial power. They fought and died in our wars. But for some “real Americans” that hasn’t been enough. So here we are again, in a period of reaction, staring into the ugly face of nativism.
Trump’s announced intention to deport 11 million “illegals” while building a wall from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico at no cost, details conveniently not provided, is simultaneously savage and ludicrous. Yet what troubles me deeply is the possibility of this kind of cesspool politics finding wider acceptance, or being ignored apathetically by large numbers of Americans.
Even more disturbing is the sluggishness of the response from Republican and Democratic opinion makers. Where is the outrage? Why is the counterattack left largely to Hispanic organizations? Why isn’t every decent media outlet shouting a few, simple home truths over the bullhorns of those insisting on their xenophobic lies? Such truths as these:
–The “illegals” are not indolent. For years now they have been picking our crops, nursing our elderly, cleaning our homes and babysitting our children. They are not freeloaders. That honor should be reserved for people like rancher Cliven Bundy who grazes his cattle on federally owned land but refuses to pay federal fees and taxes.
–They do not take jobs from Americans. Their bottom-of-the-ladder, low-wage service jobs don’t pay enough to attract American workers, white or black. Probably as many or more job losses are caused by employers moving operations abroad, or automation, which is a generic problem for all of today’s workers.
–They are not “takers.” They contribute positively to the economy through sales and excise taxes, and cannot claim Social Security, Medicare or other benefits because it would reveal their undocumented status, which makes them vulnerable to threats and exploitation by their bosses.
–Their crime rates are comparable to those of the general population, allowing for differences in income and living conditions.
It’s true that completely unregulated immigration may no longer be feasible. But the movement of people from poor and turbulent nations to wealthy, stable and reasonably free ones is happening all over the world. Our governments must come together in trade and economic treaties that level the playing field by helping to enrich and empower poorer peoples. Trade pacts need to elevate the status of working men and women rather than maximize the profits of corporations promising that some of the swag will mysteriously trickle down to “the lower orders.”
Until that miracle happens, no walls will keep desperate and courageous, motivated people from taking big risks to evade or scale them. Far better to provide our undocumented with reasonable and non-punitive paths to citizenship.
That can’t take place when truth is befogged by racist and hateful lies, which is the reason that every school should teach and every network newscast should repeat this essential reality: the story of our nation’s long practice of welcoming immigrants and opening a wide door to full rights is an American triumph, all the more so because it has been achieved over constant resistance and with many relapses and setbacks.
Should Trump and associates ever get their way, the symbol of America would change from the Statue of Liberty with her uplifted torch lighting the path through the golden door to one of the Wall, complete with searchlights, guard towers, barbed wire and watchdogs. May it never be so.
Bernard A. Weisberger is a historian who has been by turns a university professor, an editor of American Heritage and a collaborator on several of Bill Moyers’s documentaries. He is the author of Many People, One Nation, a history of immigration to the United States. [This article originally appeared at BillMoyers.com, http://billmoyers.com/2015/09/14/for-immigrants-and-all-of-us-a-time-to-fight/]
The ultra-Zionist Republican Jewish Coalition hates Trump-that may be reason enough to vote for him. BTW, Israel is the place to go if you’re looking for off-the-charts racism and xenophobia.
FYI – Rush Limbaugh (the Voice of Nationalism) on Trump
9/14/15
RUSH: Now, let me attempt to help the inside-the-Beltway conservatives and Republicans understand why the reaction to Trump is what it is and why it’s not going away any time soon, and why it probably is only going to keep building. And it’s not hard to understand at all. The first bit of advice — and remember, free advice is worth what it costs anybody. But I offer this sincerely. I’m sincerely attempting to help people understand ’cause they’re really uptight.
I mean, they’re writing articles, columns, blog posts, and they’re distressed at Trump’s success, and they are distressed at you for falling for something. “Trump is a carnival barker phony! He’s a Svengali, mesmerizing you. He’s a phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n’ roller,” and you don’t see it, and that scares them. And they’re telling you and anybody who will listen that Trump isn’t conservative — and if you think he is, you’re wrong, and you’re destroying conservatism by thinking that Trump is one and so forth.
Let me help those of you in Washington who think that to try another way of understanding what’s happening here. Nobody — and I say this with relative ontological certitude. Nobody supporting Donald Trump thinks that he is Ronald Reagan. Nobody thinks that he is William F. Buckley Jr. Nobody thinks that he is me. Nobody thinks that he is conservative, certainly not a Reagan conservative. That’s not why he is being supported. Thus, he is not harming conservatism or conservative principles.
Because he’s not redefining it, because that’s not why people support him. The reason Trump is being supported is that he is not you inside the Beltway. I hate this to sound so divisive, but we’re not the ones that created this. It’s not complicated at all. Donald Trump has not done anything to advance the Obama agenda or the Democrat Party’s agenda, and that’s the primary reason why he has such support. You in the Beltway… I don’t understand this myself. I don’t know how you missed it.
I don’t know why you didn’t think it mattered, but you were not elected to help the Democrats. Nobody’s impressed with articles that write about the need for co-governance and bipartisanship and compromise. Nobody wants to compromise with Obama or the left because they think it is destroying the foundations of this country as founded. You don’t get brownie points for signing up with that. You don’t get brownie points for helping that along.
You don’t get brownie points for reaching across the aisle. In fact, it’s gonna hurt you. It’s not… Where’s Governor Christie? It still is a big part of his appeal. Where is he in the polls? You can’t find him. Donald Trump is also not in government. Big plus. Government is perceived to be, as we discussed, out of touch. But it’s not out of touch. It’s just not interested. Government is distant. Government is not any longer about how it is portrayed in our founding documents — of, by, and for the people.
No, it’s in spite of the people now, and Trump isn’t part of it. Big, big plus. It wasn’t that long ago that the establishment GOP people, the consultants class and so forth, were out on television insisting that only a former or present governor was even qualified to be president. All others excluded, regardless of principle, regardless of record. But it’s not hard to understand. If you want to know why Trump is so popular, then you’d better learn to understand why Obama is so unpopular.
If you don’t understand Obama being unpopular, you’d better figure it out. Don’t buy this stuff with a 48% job approval. On the side of the aisle that’s gonna elect the next Republican nominee, it ain’t 48%. His approval is maybe 5% on the Republican side of the aisle that’s gonna nominate the next Republican nominee. This side of the aisle doesn’t want amnesty. They want border security. They don’t want to happen here what is happening in Europe. They want it stopped.
They don’t want the state sponsor of terrorism in the world to have a nuclear bomb or arsenal. They do not want the government running health care more and more, and to the extent that those of you inside the Beltway have been complicit in making all this happen, Donald Trump hasn’t. He hasn’t had a thing to do with it. His fingerprints are not on one aspect of what many people think has gone totally wrong in this country. Now, if you’re going to continue to have this perch of disdain for people who think this, then the divide is going to continue.
But you’d better try to understand that it’s not about conservatism here. I wish it were, frankly. I wish there had been a conservative movement in Washington. There is conservative literature all over the place, but there’s no action behind it. There’s no fight for it. When’s the last time Obama was stopped at anything? When was the last time anybody even made a serious attempt at stopping any of this? It’s really not hard to figure any of this out, unless you literally don’t see it.
Unless you literally don’t notice it, or if you do notice it and think it’s unsophisticated, unrealistic, or made up/comprised of ignorant people who don’t understand how Washington works or what have you. Whether they do or don’t, it’s still their country, too, and they vote. And they have something that the people inside the Beltway don’t have, and that is they have to live with what comes out of there. They have to live in sanctuary cities. They have to live in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
They have to live in this country where 94 million human beings are not working. They have to live in this welfare state. They have to live in areas where hospitals are closing because the emergency rooms are overrun and nobody pays and they can’t afford to stay open. None of that describes life inside the Beltway or anywhere else that people like that happen to live. They’re able to insulate themselves from it, and it’s more pronounced as a factor today than it ever has been.
So I think it would help to come up with… If you want to talk people out of supporting Trump (which is what I gather the effort is) by warning them he’s not conservative, that he’s fooling them and he’s really a Democrat in sheep’s clothing — if he is, then it’s just gonna be more of the same, because clearly there isn’t any Republican opposition in Washington that can be spotted. The thing Trump has going for him, whatever else you might want to add to the list: None of his fingerprints are on any of the stuff that has happened that people are angry at, opposed to — and, frankly, scared of.
END TRANSCRIPT
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com
Trump is a self made Billionaire with business adventures all over the world. He has been working with the powers that be for decades and knows how to get things done in the arenas where decisions are made. Democrat or Republican, makes no difference to me personally as the parameters are constantly shifting. Rush Limbaugh is a jack ass and as such holds no influence over me nor the good people of American, that matter. The immigrant issue is not the primary reason we like Trump. We like him because he is not a politician and feel that he will work for the people in restoring America’s position as a great nation. Additionally, we feel betrayed by the politicians and the media, including people like Rush Limbaugh, that are bought and paid for by the special interest groups that now control the country. Save your Rushisms for the fools that will listen. I’m voting for Trump in 2016
In a way, Trump is the poetic justice that America deserves. Immigrants used to come to America to escape ‘their’ tyrants. Now, they come to America to escape ‘our’ tyrants. But hey, what’s the big deal. A little regime change here, a little regime change there…what could possibly go wrong?
The cable networks are probably bidding right now on Trump’s Presidential Reality TV show. Imagine a script in his sixth year, and he’s murdering the supremes one by one until they change the law whereas he gets a third term. But wait…..we are all rooting for him! Why, because we have watched him for so long we are blind and driven to be stupider by the second, and that’s what we do. You should write a script of ‘the Donald’ presidency, your creative.
Well, Arnie Schwartzenegger has been tapped to take over “Celebrity Apprentice”, so I imagine he’ll be a shoo-in for Secretary of State. The new foreign policy will be Celebrity Dictatorship, where contestants will compete to consolidate jihadi factions, eliminate tribal rivalry, privatize natural resources…basically decapitate the competition. Yep, it’ll work out great. Some upstart gets too big for his breeches and blows up the wrong world heritage site, and he’ll have “The Trumpinator” to answer to. Nope, no more foolin’ around. America can’t wait to hear those iconic words: “Achmed, yoo fayaahd!”
Read this….
http://cluborlov.com
Trump for Prezz
I check out Dimitry Orlov periodically – he’s one of the few voices of sanity out there – but I missed this. Actually, it’s a good idea to elect Trump to be the “collapse President” – better a clown car fascist than a secular humanist. If Bernie wins, the collapse will be blamed on progressive socialism instead of lunatic vulture capitalism, and the Christian loonies will insist that this is all God’s revenge – it’s gonna be ugly, I tell ya…
Trump is the rebirth of Ayn-isms
” I am done with the Monster of “We,” the false word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the free face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.
This god, this one word: “I”
Do you have the source for this quote? I’d like to use it when appropriate.
bobzz
Do you have the source for this quote?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://drtomstevens.blogspot.com/2009/06/quotations-from-anthem-by-ayn-rand.html
Thanks much.
If Donald Trump does not win the presidency, it won’t be due to a lack of TV coverage. Last night I had my little TV on mute, and was tuned into MSNBC. (BTW if you find the Trumpster outrageous when listening to him, put the TV on mute, and read what he says…it is even more juvenal than hearing him…oh yeah, watch the faces he makes, that’s a scream). What amazes me is how the cable networks are doing a C-Span type broadcast of this insane guy. I mean there are no commercials. Who gets this kind of treatment from our greedy media? None other than the pompous hairdo guy from NYC. Trump throws out red meat, such as how he will raise the taxes on the hedge fund managers. People eat this stuff up. He said he will make peace with Russia, because Putin likes him better than Obama. Think about that for a minute, who would you rather have diner with, a laid back president or a talk-a-thon egomaniac? Pass the biscuits, please.
When it comes down to the immigrants I don’t see why we cannot just have them fill out a piece of paper, and start their process towards citizenship. Then tell the American leadership to quit sending our jobs overseas. I forgot Trump is among other things going to bring those jobs back. I guess we will all be making ties, but that’s okay it’s still a job. If we hadn’t given so much away, it wouldn’t feel like so much is missing…it’s that simple!
Why would the MSM back Trump with his statement of being more friendly to Russia?They hate Russia.
I think they are in a bit of a bind,if they don’t cover him,the people will recognize it,and further demean their already terrible reputation of being serial liars.(MSM)
Phony traitor scum that they are.
I should add that they,the MSM,are hoping he’ll fall flat on his face with some trip up,they love Shillary,Jeb and maybe crazier Cruz,he gives the Zionist cockles of their hearts happy beats.They be klezmerized.
I believe Mr. Weisberger ought to rethink this. The reason American workers don’t take the “bottom-of-the-ladder” crap jobs is because those jobs are exactly that. That illegals are desperate enough to do so is NOT a praiseworthy thing. The people offering the lousy jobs can either raise the wages, or go into some other business.
The same is true for the higher-end jobs where employers bring in “legal” workers from low-wage nations to displace skilled Americans and cut their own payrolls. If the US Congress wasn’t in the pocket of Big Business, this wouldn’t be permitted either.
I wager Mr.Weisberger has never done any manual labor in his life,outside his home.(Kibbutz?)
All the jobs that the illegals do obviously were once done by Americans,from landscaping,to roofing,home improvement,painting etc.,but with the low wages and competition from these people,one can’t find that work at a living wage.
More divide and conquer.Wasn’t Babel a chaos?
“It’s true that completely unregulated immigration may no longer be feasible.”
Duh. With this one sentence, Weisberger at least pays lip service to 21st century reality. But the rest of his essay is essentially a melancholy remembrance of a times long gone, extolling the good old days of unlimited immigration ignoring the reality of that far away nation that has no resemblance to what exists now – federal government and state governments without welfare systems, income taxes, sales taxes or regulations of almost any kind. The experiment of unlimited immigration of Muslims into Christian nations started in the The Netherlands a few decades ago. The result is that today the Dutch have spoken unequivocally – no more immigration. Ivory tower professors like Weisberger have no clue about reality.
… the symbol of America would change from the Statue of Liberty with her uplifted torch lighting the path through the golden door .
Bernard A. Weisberger
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
The last mass influx of immigrants from Europe essentially closed the “open door” policy for entry into these United States.
The “tired, poor huddled masses” and all that hot jazz and razz-a-ma-tazz about a beacon on a hill that Reagan proffered is nothing more than propaganda or an add campaign designed to herd the yet Unassimilated into the Collective Consciousness of “Americanism” – exceptionalism and submission to The Great White Father immersion.
To be fair,Emma had a vested interest in America being a refuge eh?
Is America a sovereign nation,or not?Does it have the right and reason to control its borders?Do undocumented poor immigrants help in any way shape or form working Americans?Are they the best and brightest,as some schmuck said?I mean really,we have the MSM giving US security up the a-hole,awhile promoting open borders.It’s almost like a conspiracy,some wacko might ponder,eh?And how about that model of democracy,Israel,how many refugees from their complete devastation of the region through their proxies(US included)will they let in?
Bernie Sanders says that borders need to be controlled.Is he a nativist nut?Trump is a loud mouthed jerk at times(most)and His anti Iran crap with crud cruz was pitiful,but he was right about illegal immigration,you can buy politicians,and McCain aint a war hero,so that’s three acorns that the rest of the rethugs haven’t found yet,and probably never will.
I do know that all these refugees here,and in Europe,are a direct result of our moronic unproductive Ziopolicies,and I sympathize with their nations destruction.But that doesn’t mean i have to support our own,brought to US by the divide and rulers.
Don’t see even a mention of Trump’s fascism.
I am a 56 year old life time resident of California and a graduate of UC Berkeley. I have voted for two Republicans in 20 National elections. I will not be voting for Trump in the future. That being said , there are too many immigrants in California and the United States in total . This is the highest percentage of foreign born people in our history. I am not writing about illegal immigrants. Since Ronald Reagan over a million people a year have been allowed to immigrate. That is besides Reagan’s two amnesties for illegal immigrants and Clinton’s- ‘Si se puede’ -brand of border enforcement. . Now in some areas , like the East Bay. it is as common to hear a foreign language as English on the street or in a supermarket. There are many direct and indirect social costs from these policies and there is no doubt that these policies have directly effected the quality of life here in California in a negative manner. But politicians won’t touch it. This is the sole reason for Trump’s popularity. The status quo is unsustainable.
What tribe Native American are you from Mr. Not-an-Immigrant?
Dave My tribe is too small to have a Gaming Casino so it doesn’t really matter. Let’s just say I was here first, for a long time. I can’t go home . I’m already there.