As Trump Mounts Another Campaign of Division, Humiliation & Fear, 2018 Promises to Be an Epic Battle Between the Populism of “Us vs. Them” and the Pluralism of E Pluribus Unum
Clearly, President Trump is turbocharging his attacks on immigrants and refugees. Just look at his twitter feed.
But why?
For starters, let’s acknowledge the obvious: Trump is unfit, unstable and unhinged. He combines a witches brew of incompetence, corruption and narcissism that make him uniquely dangerous. As New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman put it, “the biggest threat to democracy is sitting in the Oval Office.” Add Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of Axios, “Trump is more isolated and more self-certain than ever.”
With respect to immigrants and refugees, Trump and his administration are on quite a roll. His continuing attempts to blame Democrats for his own decisions to end DACA and torpedo bipartisan legislative solutions is bordering on pathetic. He continues to lash out at Congress over the lack of border wall funding, conveniently ignoring the fact that Democrats offered it in exchange for the Dream Act and he rejected it because he and Stephen Miller demanded deep cuts in legal immigration and an end to visas from what he called “shithole countries.” Yesterday alone, Trump put his tiny hands to work on a manic series of factually-challenged tweets as his administration announced new quotas for immigration judges in order to speed up deportations and new proposals to send Central American children and families back to the violence they fled without a meaningful chance to apply for protection.
This is in addition to a recent flurry of decisions: Commerce plans to add a citizenship status question to the 2020 Census in order to undermine the political power of diverse communities across America; ICE is abandoning a release policy that kept most pregnant women out of immigrant detention facilities; DHS is floating a radical policy to deny legal residency and facilitate the deportations of legal immigrants who rely on benefits such as the earned-income tax credit and health insurance subsidies; DHS terminated Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberians, a move that will, over time, subject thousands of settled Liberian immigrants to deportation; the President convened a White House round-table on so-called “sanctuary policies” that sought to whip up fears about immigrants and crime; and the President delivered a speech in New Hampshire in which he blamed immigrants for the the opioid crisis. Yes, he actually did that.
All of this is on top of previous Trump Administration decisions: empowering an “unshackled” ICE and CBP to undertake indiscriminate and cruel enforcement against long-settled immigrants — a direct consequence of their choice to eliminate enforcement priorities and sow fear in immigrant communities; ramping up ICE arrests of non-criminal immigrants by 171% last year — many detained through“silent raids” against individuals who were complying with the law and checking in regularly with the government; dismantling protections for hundreds of thousands of Temporary Protected Status holders from El Salvador, Haiti and other nations in no condition to accept their return; seeking to punish California and local jurisdictions more interested in public safety than in aiding and abetting the administration’s mass deportation strategy; slashing refugee admissions to the lowest levels in four decades; and imposing a ban on millions of Muslims.
But why this relentless focus on immigrants and refugees?
Because this is the core of Trump’s political strategy. It worked for him in 2016 and he hopes it will work in 2018. He appeals to angry voters who want to blame somebody else for the disruptions of the modern world. He gives voice to fear and loathing. His endless efforts to demonize, dehumanize and “other” immigrants and refugees is the glue that holds together his coalition. It’s the animating force of his ethno-nationalism. It’s the rally chant that still echoes. It’s the tail that wags the GOP dog. It’s the issue which has most free-market, pro-immigration conservatives fearing his wrath, coddling his voters, and aping his nativism.
Trump mobilizes his aggrieved followers by pitting “us vs. them,” with the “us” being the embattled and forgotten white people of America and the “them” being the threatening hordes of all the others. That’s why he has declared war on California; he seems to think that a culture war with a progressive and diverse state will play well in flyover land. That’s why he wants to ask for the citizenship status in the Census; he wants to dilute the political power of states with diverse populations. That’s why he wants to kick out and keep out Latinos, Asians, Africans and Muslims and increase immigration from, say, Norway; it reinforces that notion that America is engaged in a zero-sum, us vs. them, if-I win, you-lose battle.
How should those of us who believe deeply in the American creed of E Pluribus Unum — Out of Many, One — respond? How do we deal with a president and a political movement that openly traffics in racism, xenophobia and demagoguery? Yes, we should call him and his supporters out. Yes, we should resist with every fiber of our political body politic. And yes, methinks, we should cast this fight for what it is: a battle over the future of the American experiment.
In effect, Trump is saying, with a bullhorn, that America is white, besieged by those who aren’t white — from inside and outside of our borders — and it’s time for a strongman to stand up to these “others” and take our country back.
How should we counter? I believe we should take a stand rooted in the America of shared ideas and ideals, not blood and soil. We should stand up for unrealized but realizable idea that character and contribution should transcend background and birthplace. This is a nation where people come from every corner of the world come to contribute their talents, to build lives for their families, and to form a more perfect union. This is a nation that seeks to do something extraordinary — to transcend racial and ethnic boundaries in order to achieve our country — a place where freedom, justice and equality is extended and defended, to and for one and all.
Some call this battle populism vs pluralism; some call it nationalism vs patriotism; some call it white supremacy vs multiculturalism. Whatever it’s called, the battle lines are clear: Trump wants an America that pits his followers, his cramped version of “us” vs. “the other.” We want an America that includes and integrates “us and them” in a way that makes all of us stronger.
The fight is on. This is the battle heading into the 2018 midterms. It may turn out to be a generational battle with us for decades. Whatever its duration, let’s engage it with a fierce determination to expand our definition of “us.” Trump will continue his ugly and sustained attack on immigrants, refugees and more. Fear and loathing of the other is his core belief and his core strategy. We need to resist and denounce, to be sure. But we need to do more than resist and denounce.
We need to articulate and advocate for a vision of America that is more powerful and more competitive than rank appeals to hate, resentment and exclusion. Our vision is written in our founding documents. Our vision is realized in the struggle to make our ideals real in the lives of one and all, regardless of the color of one’s skin, the gender of one’s body, the place of one’s birth, the religion of one’s choice, or the person one loves. Our vision is an aspiration that is an invitation. It may not be realized yet, but it’s a fight each and everyone of us can join and wage. Our vision is inclusive, not exclusive. It’s us and them, not us vs them. It’s E Pluribus Unum, not “Build the Wall.”
Our vision? It’s the American way.
