The Republican Party: Xenophobia has been in its Blood, Since its Beginnings
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August 2018)
"How do you spell ICE in German? GESTAPO." (S. Jonas, May 2025: see footnote 2.)
Digital Reproduction of the Know-Nothing Party Flag. A perfect symbol to hang for the Repubs., no[[?], say in the Alito’s' back-yard?
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: American Party (1844-1860)) Details Source DMCA
I have published a version of this column several times in this space, most recently only half a year ago or so. Why do I do this? First, the doctrine of xenophobia has of course been at the center of Trumpism, and then Trump/Republicanism, since Trump first went into national politics with his xenophobic/racist rants against President Obama in 2012. That was, as is well-known, followed by the launch of his Presidential campaign in 2015, which launch featured that quite remarkable xenophobic/racist attack on Mexicans (as referenced in my column "Is it Hair Trump or Herr Trump?" which I have also re-run several times). Yes, if I write a column that I am particularly fond of, and I think it appropriate for re-publication at a particular time, I will do it. Just as I am doing it again with this one.
In his 2024 campaign, Trump used his tried-and-true campaign themes of "Sexism, Racism, and Xenophobia." All three are also now clearly central to the policies of his Administration. But certainly, with what is going on with an increasingly beyond-the-law ICE, i.e., due process gets the very cold shoulder, round-ups-without-a-smidgen of due-process-of-law, and the growing number of U.S. konzentration-lagerin, it seems useful to keep a repeating focus on this theme: although racism and its promotion are not far behind, xenophobia is currently at the heart of the Trump-Republican ethos and policy.
And so, is this something new for the Republican Party, something that Trump started cooking up for it to put on its plate in 2015? Well, no. Although the Party clearly began its life as very strong resister to the doctrine and policy of slavery, Xenophobia, with varying emphases over time, has had a place in Republican Party doctrine since the beginnings of the Party in 1854. For example, the former President Millard Fillmore, who, even though he had been President following the death of the last Whig President Zachary Taylor in 1850, had been denied the Whig Party Presidential nomination in 1852, in 1856 ran as the candidate of the American (Know-Nothing) Party for whom xenophobia-based opposition to immigration was their primary reason for being.
After that Party's loss in the 1856 Presidential Election, some of their members, the ones who were anti-slavery as well as xenophobic, started moving towards the Republican Party. (Along with that migration was that of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement. [See the WCTU being played out in the incredibly well-done TV series The Gilded Age.]) As we shall see just below, it was not too long before xenophobia began to creep into Republican Party policy, during Reconstruction and then for the rest of the 19th century.
For example, it was in 1875, before Reconstruction officially came to an end, that the Republicans in Congress enacted the nation's first specifically anti-immigrant law, the Page Act. It was designed to prevent the immigration of Chinese women. Can't be birthing Chinese-ancestry people here, now, can we? Sound familiar? Those women had come to join the Chinese laborers who in the 1850's and 60's had done much of the heavy manual labor to build the Western side of the first transcontinental railroad, through the mountains.
Then in 1882 the Republicans enacted the both-sexes Chinese Exclusion Act. About 40 years later came the infamous, Republican, Immigration Act of 1924. Language very similar to that of the current "Great Replacement Theory" echoed in the propaganda promoting that Act. It banned immigration from all of Asia and set severe quotas for immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, among other restrictions. (This led to, among other things, the virtual impossibility for Jewish refugees from the Nazis getting into this country during the 1930s and early 40s, until the Second World War cut off Europe completely.)
For a change, in the mid-60s, what is now looked back upon as a remarkably liberal Republican Party (in relative terms), agreed to the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which liberalized matters as they had been established in 1924, very significantly. But with xenophobia again gradually rearing its ugly head in portions of the Republican Party in this century (specifically among the members of misnamed "Freedom" Caucus), Trump put it back at the head of the line of Republican policy, beginning with that speech that accompanied his entrance into Presidential history on the gold (or is it "gold"?) escalator. BUT the point here is that this is nothing new for the Repubs. It is just a resurgence of policy that has been in the blood (one might say) of the Party since its founding. Trump and the Trumpers are just doubling down on it.
Trump, as noted, in his original 2015 "golden staircase" announcement for the Republican Presidential nomination of 2016, made it clear as a bell that xenophobia is at the center of his political doctrine (followed closely by racism and sexism).
Briefly on Racism (the political/policy companion of Xenophobia)
For most of its existence since the end of Reconstruction following the election of 1876, the Republican Party has not only been the party of xenophobia, but overall, of reaction in the United States. In fact, the only reason that Rutherford B. Hayes, the GOP candidate in that disputed election, won, was that he agreed to end Reconstruction, essentially turning over the Southern states to the former slaveholders and the Ku Klux Klan. Very quickly, despite the best efforts of President Grant, 1869-1877, "The Party of Lincoln" (amazingly, some Republicans still use that term) had become the Party of Grant's predecessor, Lincoln's successor, the racist, pro-slavery, Andrew Johnson (who most unfortunately Lincoln had chosen to "balance" his ticket in 1864). Thus, with the end of Reconstruction in 1877, which the Party sacrificed in order to keep the Presidency in Republican hands, it very soon clearly and openly turned a blind eye to the successor to slavery, Jim Crow. Over time, there were two bright Republican exceptions to this rule (to a greater or lesser extent), Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. But in neither case did their influence last very long.
In Conclusion
And so, to repeat, there were: the movement of the Know-Nothings to the developing Party before the Civil War, the Chinese exclusion Acts of the 1870s and 80s, the immigration reform Act of 1924, the refusal (with the cooperation of some Democrats to be sure) to allow more than a bare minimum of the immigration of Jewish and other persecuted minorities during the lead-up to World War II, and the opposition to the admission of "dis-placed persons" (many of them Jews) after the end of WW II. (It should be noted that the Republican Party supported the admission of refugees from Viet Nam after the end of that tragic war.)
But then, in this century, it came to Trump to recognize the power of xenophobia when it could be combined with racism and aimed at persons with darker skin. And now he is surely riding that policy-horse hard and fast. It appears that a major factor for the current version of Trump-Republicanism is the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. Trump, his ruling-class supporters, and his followers, do have the ability to look pretty far down the historical road and see that the birth-right citizen children of current immigrants who themselves may never become citizens, hardly make a good-recruiting base for the Republican Party. This has to be why Trump is campaigning so strongly to repeal that section of the 14th, whether through the process of Constitutional Amendment (hardly likely for a variety of reasons) or other means (say, his Supreme Court[?]).
And so, in summary, is xenophobia something new for Republicans and Republican political doctrine? Well, no. Is it something that Trump has just introduced to Republican politics? Well, no. It goes all the way back to the Know-Nothings and their role in the founding in the 1850's of what became the Republican Party. But right at this time, at least, right up there with trying to survive The Epstein Files and their horrifying (for the victims) fall-out, it is right at the top of Republican policy.
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AMENDMENT XIV
(Adopted July 21, 1868)
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
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Post-note: I do not think that Donald Trump will survive his "Epstein Crisis." He has been doing very well right up to the publication of "The Letter" by The Wall Street Journal. Trump would never have become President without Newscorp., The Journal, and FoxNews. That Murdoch has dumped Trump indicates that a significant chunk of the Republican Sector of the U.S. ruling class has too. With the equally evil but much smarter J.D. Vance waiting in the wings, I now believe that Trump, swollen ankles and all, will be moved out the door, fairly soon. (By the way, as a physician I know that the most likely cause of the swollen ankles is congestive heart failure. Trump’s are VERY swollen, and he has all the risk factors for congestive heart failure, in ample amounts: overweight, high stress levels in his job, no regular exercise, high-fat diet, lots of built-in and frequently expressed anger which reflects the unmanaged (and often self-created) stress under which he lives.)