Donald Trump Is Making America Small Instead of Great

Trump’s tirades against non-white female politicians may only be catching on with a small minority. But the majority needs to start speaking out.

On the southern tip of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty waits for the “tired” and the “poor,” the “huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,” the “homeless.” Wonderful words, a promise to the world in which millions of people have placed their trust for centuries. But under their president, who comes from New York, the U.S. is working to make these words sound increasingly hollow.

Donald Trump promises over and over to make America great again. But he is making the country ever smaller. “Send her back,” his followers chanted at the campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina — including to Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who the U.S. president had just attacked again for several minutes. He wants to brand her as “un-American.” Send her back — but to where?

With Omar, whose family fled from Somalia to America when she was still a child, not only an American citizen of Muslim faith is being cast out — the American dream is being cast out, too.

The United States stands for the promise of making unity out of diversity. Not for the promise that everyone is equal, feels the same, or even has to look the same. The country stands for freedom of opinion and religious tolerance, not for the exclusion of those who think differently. Yes, Omar has criticized the U.S. and some of her statements do deserve to be criticized. But she is not alone in that. And democracy does not only withstand that—it is defined by it.

But Greenville shows that Trump’s racist message is being accepted. The audience answers unmistakably and clearly: with hate-filled rants. Trump is successfully appealing to the basest instincts of his largely white voter population. With his attacks on non-white members of Congress, he is again making skin color an important point of difference. That does not bode well for the coming months, in which Trump will do everything to be reelected. His strategy consciously relies on exclusion instead of bringing the divided country back together.

For this, Trump is activating the subliminal racism in American society — and is thereby drawing resentment to the surface that for a long time has hardly been visible. The attacks led by the White House on minorities are combustible, and not only for Blacks or Muslims. The reaction of the American Jewish Committee, for whom these scenes in Greenville recalled darker times, shows as much.

What are the Democrats Doing?

There are good reasons to doubt that this resentment in America is capable of reaching a majority. But then the majority also needs to speak out. It needs to find a way to stop the un-American behavior of its president. As the rally on Wednesday demonstrated, many Democrats are of the opinion that this can only happen if Trump is impeached. There are truly enough reasons to do so, and as the degree of anger grows, so does the desire to finally pursue impeachment.

But is there a chance of success? Not really, as the highest-ranking Democrat in Congress, Nancy Pelosi, knows. On Wednesday, she was once again able to stop the plan to start impeachment proceedings. But the number of supporters is growing. Pelosi is under pressure, even from most Democratic presidential candidates, who want to take up the party’s wish.