‘ America First’ collides with US diversity
After Donald Trump’s executive order barring citizens of seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the US was halted by a federal judge’s order, the US Department of Homeland Security laid out Trump’s new plans to enforce the travel ban on Tuesday.
Though the new “streamlined version,” quoted by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as saying, enables entry for those who are holding US green card or visas, concerns have been raised on whether the new immigration laws will incite another round of disputes and chaos.
“From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land … Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families,” Trump said in his inauguration speech. And he is fulfilling it. After he took office, Trump started with immigration reform, which to him, is the biggest challenge facing his country.
At the National Prayer Breakfast on February 2, Trump said, “freedom of religion is a sacred right, but it is also a right under threat all around us,” adding that some unimaginable violence has been seen carried out in the name of religion. He, thus, vowed to defend the American heritage by saying, “because that’s what we are and that is what we will always be and that is what our people want; one beautiful nation, under God.”
From Trump’s perspective, what is the American heritage?
Since the late 20th century, this concept has been defined by the rejection and reflection on political correctness. The most prominent opinion was held by Harvard academic and political scientist Samuel Huntington, who believed that the existence of multiculturalism in the US society and the proportional decline of the white population are damaging the country’s heritage. “A multi- civilizational United States will not be the United States; it will be the United Nations.”
William A. Henry, a US arts critic for Time magazine and the author of the book In Defense of Elitism, echoed Huntington, arguing that the US society has been a white- majority society and thus, the predominantly white culture should be the elite. He, therefore, had deep fear for the proportional decline of the white population and the possible loss of the white’s central role in terms of race and culture in the country.
Huntington and Henry’s worries about the future of the US are not unfounded since the country has its inherent limitation.
For a long time since its founding, the US, as a political community, has operated effectively under the American political contract.
Currently, the large number of immigrants has altered the demographic structure and the country’s racial and cultural formation, upsetting the traditional political community.
US immigrants, nowadays, don’t necessarily have to speak English, nor do they seek to build rapport with the natives or blend into the country’s mainstream society. This has surpassed the boundary of the US political community.
After Trump’s win with “America First” rhetoric, the US is faced with an ultimatum: defending its heritage or advocating for diversity. Trump picked the former. His plan is to reconstruct the US demographic and societal structure, which will foresee conflicts and disputes in and outside the country.
However, adhering to diversity and inclusiveness doesn’t necessarily “Make America Great Again.” If diversity prevails, the US society has to abandon its “white heritage” – the culture of white Europeans and Jewish Christians. But with a growing number of Islamic and Hispanic groups coming to the country, can these different ethnic and religious communities get along with each other? The US history presents no such example. In other countries there is only interior unrest, or even collapse.
Trump’s philosophy has left the global community with a question: can we really establish a multicultural and inclusive world?