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Is Donald Trump’s racism more American than you think?
Much has been made of how Donald Trump’s racist remarks on the 2016 presidential campaign trail are un-American, outlandish, and, incredibly to some, giving him a bump in the polls.
But others say it’s time for a reality check.
They say Trump is merely a symptom, not the disease. That he’s tapping into latent cultural currents and that we shouldn’t, in fact, be surprised that his anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant,anti-“other” rhetoric is boosting his campaign and invigorating white supremacy.
Trump is “definitely not an outlier,” Erika Lee, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, told The Hill. “We always have this undercurrent of xenophobia that can burst at the seams. This might be the match that turns something that was simmering into a boil.”
“No good can come when we lie to ourselves,” added Chauncey DeVega at Salon on Friday. “Donald Trump’s racism, nativism, and bigotry are as American as apple pie.”
Citing the “racist immigration and naturalization laws” the U.S. used for decades to “maintain its status as a majority ‘white’ country,” DeVega continued: “Nativism and xenophobia are not limited to the demagoguery of Republican carnival-show barker professional wrestling wannabe reality TV show hosts who want to be president of the United States.”
Indeed, Peter Schroeder reported Friday for The Hill, “there is a significant chunk of the public eager to crack down on an influx of foreigners.”
“The sentiment is there in the electorate,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public policy at Princeton University. “You don’t need Donald Trump to have people who are calling for borders to be closed, but he taps into it. He brings it out.”
