Dallas Newspaper Blasts Trump For His "Nationalist" Claim

(The caricature of Donald Trump is by DonkeyHotey. I added the tag line.)

Donald Trump recently claimed to be a "nationalist" -- echoing the beliefs of other authoritarians throughout history.

Here's what the Dallas Morning News editorial staff thinks of his audacious claim:

This week in Houston, before a cheering crowd of thousands, President Trump needed no dog whistle or code words to rile up the worst elements of the far-right in this country or rally those who fear what he calls “globalists” to his cause.

For the first time since Pat Buchanan’s nationalist and nativist leanings sank his chances of becoming president in 1992, 1996, and 2000, a prominent American leader — the president no less — has embraced the term “nationalist” and encouraged his supporters to describe themselves in the same manner.

We understand that many Americans feel they’ve been left behind by globalization and want a government that looks out for their economic interests. But we see no need for the president or his supporters to embrace a term that is heavy with negative connotations that include nativism, racism, and, yes, fascism.

Marching under a nationalist flag would be divisive and intimidating at any time in our nation’s history, given that ours is a country of immigrants with diverse backgrounds and ethnic roots that join them together under the banner of freedom, democracy, and plurality. Since this nation’s inception, E pluribus Unum (Out of many, one) has been our motto.

But in today’s America, with the country torn culturally and politically, the president’s use of the term “nationalist” is akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater.

Surely, our president understands that describing himself as a nationalist and encouraging others to do the same will not just rile up the base for next month’s election but further coarsen our discourse and perhaps motivate the most radical elements on the far right and left.

Even if Trump tries to walk back his embrace of the term nationalist, which he shows no sign of doing as yet, his willingness to describe himself and his followers with the term has already gone a long way toward normalizing the word. We can expect to see signs at marches and rallies across the country that read “I am a proud Nationalist” next to “Keep America Great” signs. This will in turn bring out more comparisons in response to past and present radical “nationalist” organizations in other countries, including Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party or modern far-right fascist movements.

We understand that in Europe and elsewhere there’s a mounting rebellion against what many see as the  overreach of the European Union and the diminishment of national pride in countries as diverse as France, Great Britain, Spain and Italy. The common currency, ease of travel between EU nations, and the great influx of immigrants from the Mideast, Africa and other war-torn and drought-stricken regions have tested democracies and contributed to a growing wave of nationalism and tribalism.

But America is exceptional in that it has always been a nation of nations. So much so that past nativist movements were often populated with the children or grandchildren of immigrants who made their way to America’s shores.

All of this reminds us that, 53 years ago this month, at the height of the Civil Rights movement and anti-Vietnam War protests, less than two years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, with shock and disillusionment still thick in the air, President Johnson traveled to the Statue of Liberty to sign the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 into law.

The 1965 law abolished the national origin quota system that favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe and discriminated against aspiring Americans from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The new law made room for immigrants based on their family connections to the U.S. and the skills and talents they had to offer the country. Race, creed, color or national origin was no longer to play a part in weighing who would be welcomed as an American.

LBJ spoke of unity, not strife, pluralism, not discord, and a nation of nations — not nationalism.

We look back at those trying times now, with a nation bitterly divided over so much, for any wisdom they might offer us today, and inspiration they might offer for the way forward. And we believe it is worth quoting President Johnson’s words at length:

Our beautiful America was built by a nation of strangers. From a hundred different places or more they have poured forth into an empty land, joining and blending in one mighty and irresistible tide.

The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources — because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples.

And from this experience, almost unique in the history of nations, has come America's attitude toward the rest of the world. We, because of what we are, feel safer and stronger in a world as varied as the people who make it up--a world where no country rules another and all countries can deal with the basic problems of human dignity and deal with those problems in their own way.

Now, under the monument which has welcomed so many to our shores, the American nation returns to the finest of its traditions today.