Did I Mention His German Grandfather Poisoned The Blood Of Our Nation?
Trump’s paternal grandparents, Frederich and Elisabeth, immigrated to the U.S. from Bavaria but Trump’s father— and later Trump— always lied and told everyone that Frederich and Elisabeth were from Sweden instead. At one point Donald was claiming his father, Fred, was actually born in Sweden as well and when confronted with the fact that his father was born in the Bronx, Donald said his father spent a lot of time in Sweden. Why did they lie like that? Probably because of lingering anti-German sentiment after World War II. Also because Swedes were looked at in the U.S. as a higher “breed” of Europeans— better looking, sexier, smarter, purer in an Aryan way… exactly the kind of nonsense Donald Trump would buy right into.
In the 17th and early 18th centuries, dominant English colonists harbored anti-German prejudice due to their predominantly Lutheran faith, which differed from the established Protestant denominations, manifesting itself in discriminatory laws and social exclusion. The rise of nativism in the mid-19th century, fueled by anxieties about rapid immigration, targeted various groups, including Germans and the influx of large numbers of Catholic Germans further stoked existing anti-Catholic sentiment among American xenophobes. Like with all ethnicities targeted by exonophones there negative stereotypes and social discrimination. In the 1850s, the Know-Nothing Party (which today’s GOP is a direct descendent of) espoused strong anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic views, specifically targeting German and Irish immigrants. They campaigned for stricter immigration laws and limitations on the political participation of Catholics.
It’s often said that Trump, an anti-semite, can’t be an anti-semite because Ivanka converted to Judaism and his grandchildren are Jews. Let me take that apart. First of all, I said Trump is “an anti-semite.” His instincts are but he doesn’t really give a hoot about anything but himself. Everything else is negotiable. His daughter is his daughter, not a Jew. One of the things he doesn’t give a hoot about: religion. Again: negotiable. The grandchildren? Would you bet he could identify them in a crowded room and name them?
Philip Bump gets it— and shared it with his readers yesterday: The racism and ahistoricism of Trump’s ‘poison the blood’ rhetoric. “Trump” he wrote, “doesn’t hate immigrants. He married two women who immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe. Nor is he particularly insistent about immigrants having children in the United States. His three oldest children were born to Ivana Trump, who at the time had not yet become a citizen. His youngest child was born in March of the year that Melania Trump got her citizenship. So when Trump talks about how immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood’ of the country, as he did over teh weekend, we don’t need to pretend that he is offering a sober observation about shifts in the country’s population. He is, instead, making a demagogic appeal to Americans who— like so many Americans before them— view newcomers with fear or anger. The country is experiencing unusually high levels of immigration, which exacerbates those fears (and increases Trump’s ability to leverage them for political purposes).” [A fancy explanation of “negotiable.”]
A central difference, of course, is the places of origin for those immigrants. Until immigration laws were loosened in the 1960s, the vast majority of immigrants to the United States came from Europe. In recent decades, they have come from Latin America (particularly Mexico) and Asia. Immigration from Europe is relatively low.
But, 100 years ago, that did not mean that immigrants from Europe were welcome. There was a huge backlash against immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe in particular; the arrival of large numbers of Italians triggered anti-Catholic rhetoric and even violence. (You could have asked Tucker Carlson’s ancestors about that.)
Race is intertwined here. Those new arrivals a century ago weren’t seen as non-White, exactly, but were seen as “racially inferior,” as researchers Cybelle Fox and Thomas Guglielmo wrote in 2012— unclean, dangerous. Those Eastern European immigrants were often seen as physically distinct from “White” Americans in a similar way to how Hispanic and Asian immigrants are viewed as distinct today.
Trump is typically unsubtle about this. In 2018, the Washington Post reported on his disparaging of immigrants from Africa and other places with large non-White populations as unwelcome, and he lamented that more people weren’t coming from northern Europe.
The most obvious and immediate response to the idea that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country is to point out that the United States is inextricably constituted of immigrants and their children. We don’t live in Finland; we live in a country where the only native resident population is Native Americans and no other family can claim to have been here longer than about 400 years. Trump’s rhetoric is a bit like complaining about someone pouring tap water into the pond behind a dam.
It’s particularly hollow given how immigrants are underrepresented in positions of power. In Congress, for example, only about 3 percent of members were born outside the United States, according to Pew, compared with 16 percent of the population. Only about 15 percent of the members of Congress are immigrants or children of immigrants, about half the rate of the population overall.
A 2017 report looking at the effects of immigrants on the economy nonetheless found that the country is increasingly dependent on immigrants and the children of immigrants to fill jobs. The chart below, from my book about generational change in the country, shows how the share of workers who are third-generation Americans or higher has plunged since the baby boom. Increases in the workforce come from immigrants and their children.
The American population is growing because of immigration. It’s a signal advantage we enjoy, the reason that our population— unlike, say, China’s— isn’t contracting, exacerbating economic problems.
This article has extrapolated a lot of information about immigration from Trump’s comments when, again, his intent is less complicated. He’s simply amplifying his base’s fears of the perceived decline of traditional White Christian America. That he is the child and the grandchild of immigrants, married two immigrant women, and has four kids with immigrant parents— a by-no-means-uncommon situation— is simply waved away.
It’s useful to remember, though: Had he married a Catholic from Eastern Europe a century ago, he might have been the target of similar demagoguery.
And by the way, the new Des Moines Register/NBC News poll found that 42% of the racist, xenophobic slobs in Iowa (i.e.— the state’s Republican caucusgoers) said that the Hitlerite quote about immigrants poisoning America’s blood, makes them more likely to vote for Trump. He knows his audience well. 28% said the remark made them less likely to vote for Trump.