Donald Trump’s Slogans Are Already 150 Years Old
Published in Die Welt
(Germany) on 14 September 2015
by Hannes Stein (link to original)
(Germany) on 14 September 2015
by Hannes Stein (link to original)
Translated from
by Rachel Hutcheson.
Edited by Eva Langman.
The presidential candidate is entrenched in the tradition of nativism, which was founded in the middle of the 19th century and was directed against Catholic immigrants, the Chinese, Italians, Poles and Germans.
Curiously, the multibillionaire Donald Trump, who wants to run for the presidential office as the Republican candidate, still seems like a clown to some Europeans.
And these days, people are effectively rubbing their eyes in bemusement and asking themselves whether they are living in the real world or have found themselves in an episode of the cartoon series “The Simpsons.” In one episode of “The Simpsons,” which was [first] broadcast 15 years ago, Trump managed to get elected as president, which unfortunately led to national bankruptcy.
But Trump is no clown. He is a racist skunk. In all other matters, this man has demonstrated extraordinary flexibility. At one point, he was for, and at another, he was against the right to get an abortion, and both for and against the American constitutional right to bear arms.
’Mexicans Are Rapists’
Previously, he couldn’t care less for the Christian religion; now, he calls the Bible the greatest book in the world; previously, he argued in favor of universal health insurance based on the European model; today, he promises to replace “Obamacare” with “something really great.”
But through all these twists and turns, Donald Trump has always stayed true to one issue: his anti-Mexican rhetoric. He wanted to build a long, high wall against the Mexicans, he promised, because Mexico only sends “people with problems” over the border to the United States. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
He wants to deport around 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. — most of whom have regular jobs and pay taxes — and together with their children (who are American citizens), let them be rounded up by the police and shipped back to Mexico.
Of course, that would be completely impracticable: It would cost American citizens astronomical sums of money and require a bureaucratic investment that far exceeds the boundaries of sanity — above all, it would also be a violation of the Constitution.
It doesn’t matter! With his mixture of wishy washiness, great swagger and racism, Trump has managed to leave his fellow candidates in the Republican Party, the basically decent Jeb Bush among them, far behind.
Of course, not all Trump supporters are racists. Some Americans simply appreciate the way this guy is showing the establishment in Washington what’s up; others are angry at politicians in general — Democrats, Republicans, all the same — and Donald Trump is the best outlet for this anger.
The Flag of the Southern States
But white American racists are the ones who are rejoicing the loudest at Donald Trump’s triumph. They are celebrating him as the “hostile takeover” of the Republican Party, which they despise. “We are all Donald Trump now,” could be read on a right-wing website that usually satirizes Republicans as Zionists and “Jew lovers.”
Donald Trump doesn’t only stand for a type of anger, but also for a kind of fear — the fear of a future in which white Americans will be a minority in their own country. On the evening of June 17, 2015, a fascist in the most famous black church in Charleston, South Carolina opened fire and killed nine people.
Afterward, it was decided that the red flag with the white stars on the blue cross of St. Andrew — the symbol of the racist Jim Crow laws — should be taken down from many public places, including [federal buildings] in the American states of the South. In the process, however, the fears of white racists' fears increased greatly.
Party Against Immigration
Due to its age, the tradition in which Donald Trump, with his anti-Mexican rhetoric, finds himself could be called venerable: It is the tradition of American nativism. In the 19th century, this nativism turned on Catholic immigrants, with a particular bias toward the Irish.
Basically, people put forward the same arguments that are used today against the Mexicans: The Irish are criminals and drunkards, hit their wives, and are deeply immoral. In 1845, the Know Nothing Party was founded in New York, which owed its name to its mysterious structure — party members, when interrogated by the authorities, should always simply answer, “I know nothing.”
In reality the members of this anti-immigration party believed that they knew quite a lot: Catholicism was supposedly not compatible with American freedom. The blood of the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants should not, in their opinion, be muddied by inferior influences.
Germans Should Helpfully Preach in English
The most famous nativist of his time was Samuel Morse (1791-1872), the inventor of the telegraph and co-inventor of Morse code. He wrote, “Surely American Protestants, freemen, have discernment enough to discover beneath them the cloven foot of this subtle foreign heresy.”
And furthermore, “they will see that popery is now what it has ever been — a system of the darkest political intrigue and despotism, cloaking itself to avoid attack under the sacred name of religion. They will be deeply impressed with the truth, that popery is a political as well as a religious system; that in this respect it differs totally from all other sects, from all other forms of religion in the country.”
But of course, nativism was not only aimed against Catholic immigrants. Chinese, Italians, Russians, Hungarians, Poles and Greeks were hounded in America — even the Germans were.
Even they, to some degree, became victims of nativism. They were accused of cliquism — riotousness in Lutheran religious services, which they defiantly held in German instead of helpfully learning English. On “Bloody Monday” in 1855, in Louisville, Kentucky, both Catholics and Germans were attacked by a mob from the Know Nothing Party.
Immigration from Mexico Is Minimal
During World War I, an anti-German paranoia broke out in America that hit Mennonites hardest of all because, as pacifists, they refused to take part in the war — to show the required patriotic proof of loyalty.
Interestingly, nativism always would become most virulent at the moment when the respective wave of immigration was over. Nativism was, for all intents and purposes, a frenzy after the event, a political fever with which America was afflicted when the immigrants who had landed on its coast had been absorbed and integrated into its society.
This is how it is today, too: Net immigration of Mexicans into the United States has continuously been zero since 2010. Once more, and all together this time, there is currently, de facto, no Mexican immigration.
Admittedly, that doesn’t change the fact that one fine and not too distant day [in the future], America could have a female president by the name of Guadalupe, Juana or Alejandra. Donald Trump’s blonde hairpiece will then be quietly rotting away by itself in a museum.
Curiously, the multibillionaire Donald Trump, who wants to run for the presidential office as the Republican candidate, still seems like a clown to some Europeans.
And these days, people are effectively rubbing their eyes in bemusement and asking themselves whether they are living in the real world or have found themselves in an episode of the cartoon series “The Simpsons.” In one episode of “The Simpsons,” which was [first] broadcast 15 years ago, Trump managed to get elected as president, which unfortunately led to national bankruptcy.
But Trump is no clown. He is a racist skunk. In all other matters, this man has demonstrated extraordinary flexibility. At one point, he was for, and at another, he was against the right to get an abortion, and both for and against the American constitutional right to bear arms.
’Mexicans Are Rapists’
Previously, he couldn’t care less for the Christian religion; now, he calls the Bible the greatest book in the world; previously, he argued in favor of universal health insurance based on the European model; today, he promises to replace “Obamacare” with “something really great.”
But through all these twists and turns, Donald Trump has always stayed true to one issue: his anti-Mexican rhetoric. He wanted to build a long, high wall against the Mexicans, he promised, because Mexico only sends “people with problems” over the border to the United States. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
He wants to deport around 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. — most of whom have regular jobs and pay taxes — and together with their children (who are American citizens), let them be rounded up by the police and shipped back to Mexico.
Of course, that would be completely impracticable: It would cost American citizens astronomical sums of money and require a bureaucratic investment that far exceeds the boundaries of sanity — above all, it would also be a violation of the Constitution.
It doesn’t matter! With his mixture of wishy washiness, great swagger and racism, Trump has managed to leave his fellow candidates in the Republican Party, the basically decent Jeb Bush among them, far behind.
Of course, not all Trump supporters are racists. Some Americans simply appreciate the way this guy is showing the establishment in Washington what’s up; others are angry at politicians in general — Democrats, Republicans, all the same — and Donald Trump is the best outlet for this anger.
The Flag of the Southern States
But white American racists are the ones who are rejoicing the loudest at Donald Trump’s triumph. They are celebrating him as the “hostile takeover” of the Republican Party, which they despise. “We are all Donald Trump now,” could be read on a right-wing website that usually satirizes Republicans as Zionists and “Jew lovers.”
Donald Trump doesn’t only stand for a type of anger, but also for a kind of fear — the fear of a future in which white Americans will be a minority in their own country. On the evening of June 17, 2015, a fascist in the most famous black church in Charleston, South Carolina opened fire and killed nine people.
Afterward, it was decided that the red flag with the white stars on the blue cross of St. Andrew — the symbol of the racist Jim Crow laws — should be taken down from many public places, including [federal buildings] in the American states of the South. In the process, however, the fears of white racists' fears increased greatly.
Party Against Immigration
Due to its age, the tradition in which Donald Trump, with his anti-Mexican rhetoric, finds himself could be called venerable: It is the tradition of American nativism. In the 19th century, this nativism turned on Catholic immigrants, with a particular bias toward the Irish.
Basically, people put forward the same arguments that are used today against the Mexicans: The Irish are criminals and drunkards, hit their wives, and are deeply immoral. In 1845, the Know Nothing Party was founded in New York, which owed its name to its mysterious structure — party members, when interrogated by the authorities, should always simply answer, “I know nothing.”
In reality the members of this anti-immigration party believed that they knew quite a lot: Catholicism was supposedly not compatible with American freedom. The blood of the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants should not, in their opinion, be muddied by inferior influences.
Germans Should Helpfully Preach in English
The most famous nativist of his time was Samuel Morse (1791-1872), the inventor of the telegraph and co-inventor of Morse code. He wrote, “Surely American Protestants, freemen, have discernment enough to discover beneath them the cloven foot of this subtle foreign heresy.”
And furthermore, “they will see that popery is now what it has ever been — a system of the darkest political intrigue and despotism, cloaking itself to avoid attack under the sacred name of religion. They will be deeply impressed with the truth, that popery is a political as well as a religious system; that in this respect it differs totally from all other sects, from all other forms of religion in the country.”
But of course, nativism was not only aimed against Catholic immigrants. Chinese, Italians, Russians, Hungarians, Poles and Greeks were hounded in America — even the Germans were.
Even they, to some degree, became victims of nativism. They were accused of cliquism — riotousness in Lutheran religious services, which they defiantly held in German instead of helpfully learning English. On “Bloody Monday” in 1855, in Louisville, Kentucky, both Catholics and Germans were attacked by a mob from the Know Nothing Party.
Immigration from Mexico Is Minimal
During World War I, an anti-German paranoia broke out in America that hit Mennonites hardest of all because, as pacifists, they refused to take part in the war — to show the required patriotic proof of loyalty.
Interestingly, nativism always would become most virulent at the moment when the respective wave of immigration was over. Nativism was, for all intents and purposes, a frenzy after the event, a political fever with which America was afflicted when the immigrants who had landed on its coast had been absorbed and integrated into its society.
This is how it is today, too: Net immigration of Mexicans into the United States has continuously been zero since 2010. Once more, and all together this time, there is currently, de facto, no Mexican immigration.
Admittedly, that doesn’t change the fact that one fine and not too distant day [in the future], America could have a female president by the name of Guadalupe, Juana or Alejandra. Donald Trump’s blonde hairpiece will then be quietly rotting away by itself in a museum.
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