Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen


“Go Home” Rhetoric is as American as Immigration Itself

July 25, 2019

It’s a long and oscillating history: America welcoming immigrants and telling them to go home. As Washington Post senior editor Marc Fisher explains, it didn’t start with Trump: “there’s a long history of rejecting “different” Americans:” Eastern European, Irish, German, Italian, Latin American, or African American.  Interestingly, most Republicans want more immigrants to boost the economy. Even conservative icon Ronald Reagan declared “Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American. We draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world.” But Trump bucked the Republican Party in 2016.  And he’s not concerned that he is seen as racist and that his policies anger most Americans. He only cares about keeping his base solid. And they are just the latest in a long line of “nativists.”