Trump’s ugly anti- immigrant smear
It would be funny, a classic husband- wife joke, if Donald J. Trump weren’t president of the United States of America. Mr. Trump seems well on the way to making immigration and related “alien” questions the centerpiece of his campaign for a second term as president. This from a man who has had two wives who were immigrants. Ivana, his first wife, is Czech. Melania, his third wife, is Slovenian. I don’t know how many of his five children have a claim to citizenship in their mother’s country of origin.
What I am certain about is that Mr. Trump’s recent attack on four members of Congress, based on their race, ethnicity or country of birth, was disgusting and embarrassing to anyone aware of America’s history, or the personal histories of the individual legislators he attacked. Some Americans fairly wonder if our principles and our democracy can bear four more years of Mr. Trump’s non- leadership.
One could also wonder if Mr. Trump has simply gone too far this time. With the exception of Native Americans, we were all immigrants here, whether we came in chains, or whether we came in search of work, land or — heaven help us — looking for freedom.
Forty- five percent of the largest
publicly- traded American corporations were started by immigrants. Whom among us does not have a relative who was an immigrant? With that bit of family history in mind, how could one possibly vote for the abusively anti- immigrant Mr. Trump in 2020?
Some have characterized Mr. Trump’s words as relatively harmless schoolyard name- calling. I went to grade school and high school with other young people who had Polish, Lithuanian, Italian or other last names that clearly labeled them as of non- AngloSaxon ethnicity. Even in the small, tough industrial town where I misspent my youth, making reference to someone as “foreign” was out of bounds. Saying someone should go back to where she came from, as Mr. Trump allowed his supporters to chant, was absolutely unacceptable.
Senator Lindsey Graham, RS. C., on July 15, on Fox News, may have done worse in referring to the four congresswomen whom Mr. Trump had attacked as being “a bunch of communists.” First of all, they aren’t. They are Democrats. Their views on health care, education, immigration and other issues are different, no doubt, from Mr. Graham’s, but anyone who would describe them as “communists” is totally ignorant of their views and also completely ignorant of communism, in theory and in practice. ( It is not difficult to study communism, although it is arguable that no country is communist any more, even though they may call themselves “MarxistLeninist.”)
But that is not the worst part of Mr. Graham’s attempted labeling of the four congresswomen. The really disgusting aspect of the words he threw around is the fact that they attempt to take Americans back to a truly disturbed time in our history, the early 1950s, when Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, RWis., attempted to smear America’s military, diplomats, actors and movie producers with unfounded charges of being communists, destroying reputations and careers until reasonable people put him out of business.
It is hard to imagine that Mr. Graham wants to follow in McCarthy’s footsteps. I had hoped that when his close friend, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., passed away, Mr. Graham would pick up the late Vietnam War hero’s independent banner in the Senate. Instead, he is trying to take us back to the bad old days of irresponsible anti- communism at home. Americans have never found communism appealing. Having lived for two years in communist Bulgaria, I accept the conclusion of almost all Americans on the subject.
So what does Mr. Graham find wrong with the four congresswomen? That they are women? That they are not pure “white”? That they have views different from his? Come on.
Coming back to back, Mr. Trump’s tacit acceptance of the point of view of the mob and Mr. Graham’s attempted false smear of four congresswomen may provide some indication of the kind of electoral campaign we are entering. Right now it looks like the equivalent of the swimmer trying to paddle through the Pacific Ocean plastic trash pile. Is it really necessary to do it this way? We are better than that.