Trump must disown nativism — and fast | thearticle

Donald Trump crossed a line this week — and he knows it. He was silent for several seconds as a chant of “Send her back” erupted at a rally in North Carolina. But that chant — directed

against the Somali-American Muslim Ilhan Omar — was a response to his own tweets, telling Ms Omar and three other American-born Democratic congresswomen to “go back”. And Trump later

admitted: “I felt a little bit badly about it.” So he should. No President in modern times has tried to exploit nativist hostility to immigrants. The last serious candidate for the White

House to play the race card was the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, who was shot and paralysed during the 1972 presidential campaign. Wallace was a Southern Democrat — in those days a

powerful faction, notorious for supporting “Jim Crow” segregation. Today, that faction is extinct. Trump, by contrast, leads the party of Abraham Lincoln. He himself is a New Yorker,

descended from German and Scottish immigrants, born in the melting pot of Queens. He has married not one but two naturalised Americans. Most of the swing states that he must win if his bid

for re-election is to succeed, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, have large numbers of naturalised citizens. Nobody can be elected President of the United States if they alienate the 50

million or so immigrants who make up some 15 per cent of the population. Trump knows this, of course. When he said of the “send her back” chant “I disagree with it”, he is probably telling

the truth. A significant section of his support in 2016 came from first- or second-generation voters who are tired of the identity politics of the Democrats. They don’t want to be hyphenated

Americans — just Americans. The economy has boomed under Trump and these voters may well stick with him, but not if they are made to feel insecure by his incendiary rhetoric. That rhetoric

may fire up his base, but this week it overshot the mark. Republicans with immigrant backgrounds are made queasy by nativist language. Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American senator who calls the

shots in Florida, spoke for many when he condemned Trump: “The tweet was wrong and the chant last night grotesque.” Others have compared the North Carolina rally to Nuremberg. That is

unfair. Unlike most of the European nations now pointing accusatory fingers, the United States has never had a significant Nazi or Fascist party. Many, especially on the Left, will seize on

the events of this week to fuel their deep-seated anti-Americanism. But the United States remains the land of the free, even and especially under Trump. That is the reason why it is still

the world’s number one destination for migrants. Nor is it true to say, as Ms Omar does, that this President is “a fascist”. Coming from a woman who has accused the US of being manipulated

by “the Benjamins”, such insults are hypocritical. Left-wing anti-Semitism, winked at and occasionally voiced by Ms Omar and her fellow members of “the Squad”, has a pedigree no less

unsavoury than the hideous chanting at Trump’s rallies. But the President now needs to prove that, as he insists, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” It is not enough to disown the

extremists among his claque. Trump should talk about his own background in terms that make it clear that his vision of America is, like that of the Founding Fathers, an inclusive one. He

must appeal, with actions as well as words, to minorities who don’t want to be patronised with handouts, but merely given equal opportunity. There is a difference between affirming that

citizenship is a privilege that must be earned by hard work and patriotism, and telling those who exercise their right to criticise aspects of the US to leave the country. It has become a

commonplace to point out that there is method in Trump’s madness — that he has skewered moderate Democrats by forcing them to identify themselves with their party’s “progressive” wing, which

is undoubtedly unpopular. This time, though, he has gone too far, uniting not only liberals and ethnic minorities but also moderate conservatives against him. If he really wants to make

America great again, Trump needs to row back — and quickly.