Combating the Nativist Narrative
Week of November 13, 2023
Trump Echos Hitler…again:
On his social media platform and again at a Veterans Day speech last Saturday, Trump called his political enemies “vermin,” in an echo of the sort of dehumanizing rhetoric of the Nazis. Presidential historian Jon Meacham said, “to call your opponent vermin, to dehumanize them, is to not only open the door, but to walk through the door toward the most ghastly kinds of crimes.” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, told The Washington Post that “calling people 'vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman on CNN said of the remarks: “So, I think the language, which has been, very, very, fascist- invoking, or at least echoes of fascists, in history, for a long time, has become much more dramatic, and much more severe, in recent weeks. And to your point, he’s not hiding any of it.” Even some loud public skeptics of the illustrative comparison have come around with these latest comments. President Biden also made the connection, saying, “It echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany in the '30s. And it isn’t even the first time.” Biden referenced a comment from last month that the New York Times characterized as “When asked about immigration in a recent interview, the former president used language with echoes of white supremacy and Hitler.” Nor do Trump’s comments come in a vacuum, on the same weekend, the Times detailed the campaign’s call for massive detention camps, and Axios reported on the loyalty and ideological screening tests the campaign has begun to implement. Moreover, the roadmap closely associated with the campaign Project 2025, presents a disturbing scope of the sweepingly radical agenda they hope to implant. (See the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism excellent breakdown of Project 2025.) Meanwhile, the Republican Party has been damningly silent. Analysis from Media Matters found an equally abhorrent silence from Fox News on Trump’s dangerously dehumanizing rhetoric. Courting bigoted political violence along the path to undermine democracy is nothing new for Trump, but as the degrees increase and water goes from hot to boiling, it becomes dangerous. Trump’s actions and rhetoric passed the danger point well before last weekend, however, the comments do mark a significant escalation. There also appears to be a growing awareness of the urgency of the violent, anti-democratic threat he represents – a vocal awareness that must be sustained despite the difficulty of doing so.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: Among the many responses, Robert P. Jones’, the founder of PRRI, reaction on his Substack was particularly sharp at defining the moment: “Even as a scholar who has tracked Trump’s rhetoric and its impact on his followers carefully since 2015, I have found myself, too often, responding to Trump’s latest hateful outburst with a demoralized shrug… But Trump’s most recent comments should jar us back to our senses. They signal something new, even for Trump—that he has now fully embraced the rhetoric and strategies of the Nazis. If we care about democracy and the safety of all of our neighbors and fellow citizens, we can’t dismiss these comments as typical bluster or with a wave of the hand because ‘Trump is just being Trump.’”
White Nationalist conspiracy cited to push sham impeachment of DHS Secretary Mayorkas:
Last Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a privileged resolution to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas relying on language associated with the great replacement conspiracy theory. In her remarks on the House floor for the introduction of this resolution, Rep. Greene frequently used dangerous invasion rhetoric. Her resolution makes the same “invasion” conspiracy claim. What Rep. Greene’s effort makes clear is that Republicans are hostile to a good faith debate about policy solutions and interested only in preformative and nativist extractive revenge. There is no substance for impeachment, making the normalization of the deadly white nationalist and antisemitic rhetoric the sole purpose of the resolution. But nor are Rep. Greene’s white nationalist aligned efforts on this front entirely novel, we have identified at least 20 other Members of Congress who have made similar attacks before she introduced her bigoted resolution. A Monday night vote shunted the resolution to the Homeland Security Committee with eight Republicans joining with Democrats. But, most battleground Republicans in Biden-won congressional districts, like Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), Jen Kiggans (R-VA), and David Valadao (R-CA), sided with Rep. Greene’s white nationalist conspiracy resolution. On Wednesday, House Republicans continued their sham impeachment push in a Homeland Security Committee hearing that was scheduled before Rep. Greene introduced her privileged resolution. With Secretary Mayorkas before the committee, Chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) opened the hearing with the “open borders” disinformation and a version of the replacement theory, making the misleading comparison that the “ number of illegal immigrants who entered our country since President Biden took office is greater than the population of 33 of our states. I’ll repeat that: more than 33 out of our 50 states.” Throughout the hearing, Members declared their support for impeaching the Secretary while, of course, not providing any new evidence to back up that position. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) amplified the racist fiction, accusing the Secretary of “facilitating an invasion,” referencing Articles of Impeachment he filed back in June that, like Rep. Greene’s, relied on language associated with the great replacement conspiracy theory.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: This latest House vote reveals how rooted the violence-inspiring white nationalist conspiracy is inside the Republican Party. What was a decade ago confined to neo-Nazi and white nationalist circles is now the central organizing principle for Republicans around immigration. This vote is a stunning indictment that shows Republicans are not practically engaged in a debate about how to regulate and manage migration, but are instead locked into a strategy of bigoted conspiratorial rhetoric to advance a vision that strikes at the very heart of the promise of America as an inclusive democracy. More from other experts and advocates on the vote HERE.
Trump’s radical second-term agenda to redefine America:
Last weekend, the New York Times published a detailed overview of the Trump campaign promises on immigration. While nothing new for close observers of the campaign, packaged together in the paper of record, it presents as a staggering escalation for a man defined by his extremism on the issue. They outlined plans to restart and expand the Muslim ban, set up massive detention camps as part of sweeping raids and mass deportations, end the Constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, end asylum as we know it, and a host of other extreme policy agenda items backed in part with the white nationalist rhetoric of a migrant “invasion.” Separately any of these policies, if enacted, would cause vast amounts of devastation, not just to immigrant communities but also to vital industries and the overall economy, all without addressing any of the push factors contributing to forced global migration. “Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” the Times quotes close Trump advisor and white nationalist Stephen Miller saying. “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.” Miller’s giddy proclamation shouldn’t be interpreted as anything other than the serious threat he attends it to be. While the efficacy of Miller’s strategy to secure majorities should be questioned with deep skepticism, if given access to the levers of power, they will move hard and fast for fundamental structural change
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: The sum total of the pieces of the nativist narrative this last week draws in sharp relief what this Substack has attempted to communicate: taken individually, the nativist rhetoric, politics, and policy are of serious concern for the politics of immigration and their downstream consequences, but taken cumulatively they represent a much broader and devastating threat. The cumulative total here is something far beyond a debate limited to immigration regulations, and one that points to a radical strategy that weaponizes a perceived threat from non-white immigrants to attack democracy and redefine who gets to be an American. The calls for detention camps, ending birthright citizenship, Muslim bans, and mass deportations outlined in the Times – and will soon be adopted by the party at large – are all individually devastating but collectively represent a white nationalist vision that is incompatible with the American promise of a multiracial democracy.
POLITICS UPDATES
The Extremist Drift of Rep. Tony Gonzales: The Texas border Republican, Rep. Tony Gonzales (TX-23), began the year looking to differentiate himself from the extreme nativism of his party. In January, Gonzales complained about not being invited on Biden’s trip to the southern border, telling, Face the Nation, “I’m not this crazy extremist Republican.” In Spring, Gonzales put himself in the spotlight vocally opposing his party on anti-immigrant proposals, challenging fellow Republican Chip Roy's plan to effectively end asylum and block unaccompanied migrant children from seeking protections. Gonzales slammed the proposal as “not Christian” and “anti-American.” But after his vocal opposition, Gonzales provided a critical vote for H.R.2 an extreme, unworkable, and cruel piece of anti-immigrant legislation that would gut asylum. Despite falling in line to advance the GOP’s nativist agenda, Gonzales’ vocal opposition to the extreme anti-immigrant proposals drew his colleagues to publicly court a primary challenge to his right. Due to Republican-led redistricting, Gonzales’ main electoral concern in this largely safe Republican seat comes from the potential primary. In the shadow of this pressure, Gonzales joined with the poster child of crazy extremist Republicans, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, to reportedly whip votes for her white nationalist conspiracy impeachment push. The drift to embrace hard-right extremism isn’t a phenomenon unique to Gonzales, but illustrative of internal pressures and incentives that the GOP have created to force themselves further and further right. After the primary threat abates, Gonzales may once again try to seize the spotlight by playing a moderate, but votes and actions speak a lot louder than words on where you stand as a crazy extremist Republican.
VA-07: After rumors and a solid election cycle for Democrats in Virginia that knocked Republican Governor Glen Youngkin’s presidential aspiration and extreme agenda down a peg or two, Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger announced she would not seek another term in Congress but would look to run for Governor in November 2025. Youngkin is limited to one term so that will be an open race. Spanberger’s now-open seat for this hotly contested House battleground district is one we will be keeping a close eye on as it could quickly get ugly. Republican Cole County Supervisor Yesli Vega is likely to seek the seat again after losing to Spanberger in 2022. Vega may try to play the part of a moderate with the hopes of flipping this seat, but her friends tell a different story, in 2022 she received a Trump endorsement, campaigned with Sen. Ted Cruz, and was one of Elise Stefanik’s top targets, all of whom have been leading figures normalizing the deadly “replacement” and “invasion” conspiracies. Despite Vega’s hard-right allies, she may have to fend off a primary challenger before the June primary, in which case this race could quickly devolve into a nativist race to the bottom.
From November to November: Closing out the off-year, federal and statewide candidates have begun launching their campaigns and airing their TV introduction ads. Ads for Indiana Governor, IN-03, and the Ohio Senate race, all airing this week, add yet more evidence that nativist attacks will continue to be a top messaging priority for Republicans throughout 2024. And, of course, the GOP presidential campaigns continue to keep up their air war on the issue. Beyond the televised polished introductions, the targeted fundraising appeals and attack ads are where the extreme rhetoric starts to show. Earlier this week, I received a fundraising call from the NRCC, and after the appeal to impeach Biden over the Hunter Biden laptop didn’t get me to cough up the $23 they were asking for, the caller's script had her making a great replacement theory argument claiming Democrats were amidst a plot to use immigrants to “expand the welfare state,” and “create new Democrat voters.” And these appeals are constant. We have identified well over 500 fundraising campaign emails that employ nativist narratives throughout this year, and anticipate an increasing torrent as more and more campaigns kick off early next year.
WEEKLY STATS OF NATIVIST NARRATIVE
Of the 525 GOP Twitter accounts we track, this week, they sent:
386 original tweets peddling anti-immigrant attacks mentioning “border”
65 original tweets about “open borders,” with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet having the most reach with 532.6K Views, 4.4K Retweets, and 17K Likes.
33 original tweets that used “Biden Border Crisis” withSen. Ted Cruz tweet having the most reach with 13.8K views, 4.6K Retweets and 15K Likes.
15 original tweets that mentioned both “fentanyl” and “border” with Gov. Greg Abbott tweet having the most reach with 13.8K Views, 72 Retweets, and 216 Likes.
