The New Know-Nothing Candidate
Donald Trump has taken many different policy positions in this election and over his public life. Recently, he has adopted many traditional positions of the Republican Party that he did not previously espouse (including being a Republican).
But through all of this noise, there are several core policies that Trump has built his campaign upon. If we look closely at these, perhaps we can get to the core of the vision that Trump is selling.
Anti-foreign, pro-American
Trump has been remarkably consistent in his hostility towards foreign countries and immigrants to the US.
Trump wants to “build a wall” and have Mexico pay for it. He also wants a “temporary” ban on Muslim immigrants, though it’s not clear when that would ever be lifted. In general, his stated immigration policies are to discourage immigration and redirect those resources to native-born Americans.
Trump is against free trade, and sees China as an economic opponent who has been cheating the US. Free trade would imply partnering with other countries as equals, potentially “losing” any real or imagined American advantage. Multinational companies and competition have meant that jobs formerly done by Americans are now being done overseas.
Trump doesn’t see great value in participating in NATO or getting involved in standing with European countries against Russian aggression. To him, terrorism is a much greater concern.
Nativism or racism?
Racism, as defined in the common liberal US worldview, is discriminating against people based on their race, religion, ethnicity, or country of origin. This definition covers many different kinds of discrimination, from bias against stereotypically African-American names when reviewing resumes or responding to ads, to banning people from entering the US based on their religion, to old-school KKK good times.
But Trump’s “racist” positions are not generally targeted against African-Americans or against Jewish Americans (I believe the Star of David controversy was much more a clear indication of the campaign’s incompetence rather than some actual anti-Jewish belief).
So while in the liberal worldview, discrimination against immigrants and discrimination against African-Americans are each actions that will earn you the label “racist,” in the worldview of many Trump supporters, those two kinds of discrimination are separated.
Discrimination against African-Americans is “racism” and is not socially acceptable. (As a side note, movements like Black Lives Matter, which identifies/claims that African-Americans do not receive the same treatment by police as white Americans, may be considered “racist” because they require changing the status quo. If you believe we are already in a racism-free society, then the police changing their treatment of African-Americans specifically would be “reverse racism.”)
However, discrimination against recent- or future-immigrant Latino-Americans or Muslim Americans is not considered “racism.” Members of these groups are viewed as legitimate threats to America, so ill-will against them is akin to ill-will against a convicted criminal. Illegal immigrants from Latin America are breaking the law and are not assimilated into mainstream white culture. Muslims may harbor sympathy for terrorists or may themselves be terrorists.
Discrimination against these groups isn’t based simply on the fact that they’re different, it’s both that they’re different as well as seen as potential threats to the existing American civilization.
But what about…
I don’t think nativism is only reason a primary-season Trump supporter would have chosen him over a different Republican primary candidate. He projects the image of financial success. He is plain-spoken and sees the world as divided between “winners” and “losers”. He is a more traditional and masculine father-figure (divorces notwithstanding). He is not part of the neoliberal Republican elite that supports big business and globalization. He has taken on the trappings of being a social conservative, however convincing or unconvincing people may find that.
It’s also true that many of the other Republican primary candidates were anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim. But they did not make these positions the heart of their policy platform in the way that Donald Trump did, nor jettison fiscal conservatism in the way that Donald Trump has.
The New Know-Nothings
Questions about the future of the Republican Party have looked back to the demise of the Whig Party. In the 1856 Presidential election, the Whig party had recently dissolved and given rise to two new parties: the Republican Party and the American Party.
At that time, the Democratic Party was Southern, pro-business, pro-slavery/states’ rights, and pro-immigration. The new Republican Party was a northern party that was primarily anti-slavery. The new American Party, also known as the Know-Nothings, was an anti-Catholic immigration party.
The Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, won the election, and by 1860, the issue of slavery had become the key issue dividing the country and the American Party had dissolved.
In trying to re-map the parties of 1856 to today, the Democratic Party of 1856 would be the Republican establishment of today and the Republican Party of 1856 would be more akin to the Democratic Party of today. While the nativism of the American Party is directed at a different set of immigrants, I believe this basic concern, that America is under threat from immigrants and foreign powers (then: the Pope; now: the Chinese), is an animating force for support for Donald Trump.
Post-election
I don’t expect the Republican Party to fracture into new parties. However, in the wake of an expected November loss, it is unclear what path the party will take forward. Elites could reassert control and work to implement the 2012 post-mortem strategy to bring Latino-Americans into the GOP, but that route has suffered a huge setback. Republican elites could also join the Democratic Party, forging a new centrist party. But in either case, Trump supporters will remain a core constituency of the Republican Party for the forseeable future.
