The GOP Is Americas Party of White Nationalism

[TransitJohn]

The Republican party's racists were once pushed to the fringes. In the Trump era, they're in charge.
**snip**
This is how the Bannons and Kings view the modern world: The West is threatened by hordes of swarthy outsiders, especially Mexicans and Muslims, and they are lonely defenders of the white Christian race against this insidious threat. There is no evidence that Trump has given this matter as much thought as they have, but, based on his public pronouncements, he has reached similar conclusions. That helps to explain why the administration is building a border wall, expanding deportations, and trying to keep out citizens of as many Muslim countries as possible. This isn’t about fighting terrorism or crime; it’s about fighting changing demographics. And it’s premised on an unspoken assumption that only white Christians are true Americans; all others are “somebody else.”

This is ugly stuff. It is directly at odds with the way the Founding Fathers defined our country — as a nation bound together not by common blood but by common ideals. They thought it “self-evident” that “all men are created equal.” Of course that vision was always contested; even the Constitution initially enshrined slavery and throughout our history organizations such as the Know-Nothings, the Ku Klux Klan, and the America Firsters have anathematized racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. (Ironically, Catholics like Bannon and King were often victims of discrimination in the past.)

That is not to say that a desire to maintain a mainstream culture, built around a shared language and shared values, is misplaced. But each wave of newcomers — German, Irish, Italian, Eastern European, Latino, Asian — has faced handwringing about whether they would become fully “American,” and each in turn has done so. America, for its part, has become more welcoming to people of all colors and creeds than it once was. Over the past half-century, we have made impressive strides in fighting rank racism and institutionalized intolerance without reducing the imperative to assimilate.
**snip**

Whole piece at Foreign Policy.

[raccoon]

1. Great article--and disturbing.

Sarah Posner said, in an article which I can't find right now, that when King uses words
like "culture" and "civilization," he's using code words for "white supremacy."

[dalton99a]

2. It's their new dog whistle