Trump the European Nationalist Puts America Last
By Roger Cohen
Opinion Columnist
June 22, 2018
ATHENS — President Trump, in concert with several European leaders, including those of Hungary, Poland, Austria and Italy, is intent on dehumanizing immigrants and refugees. The aim is to equate them with terrorists and criminals ready to “infest” — Trump’s word — American and European civilization, defined as a threatened white Judeo-Christian preserve.
It’s a consistent policy buttressed by insinuation and lies about the supposed threat, and designed to manipulate fear and nationalism as election-winning emotions in a time of rapid technological change, large migrant flows and uncertainty. Vermin infest, not humans.
Every utterance of Trump on immigration is meant to conflate immigration with danger. This is a direct repudiation of America’s distinguishing essence — its constant reinvention through immigrant churn. The immigrant brings violence. The immigrant brings terror. The immigrant’s humanity is lesser or nonexistent. These are tropes about “the other” whose capacity to galvanize mobs, and wreak havoc, was proved in the first half of the 20th century. Trump does not hesitate to use them.
Nor does Viktor Orban, the right-wing Hungarian leader, who has said that “every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk.” The Hungarian parliament has just passed legislation that would throw people in jail for providing assistance to asylum seekers and migrants.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/opinion/trump-european-nationalists-viktor-orban.html
