At a Medal of Freedom ceremony on January 19, 1989 President Ronald Reagan spoke for the last time to his fellow Americans with a love letter to immigrants :
“…A man wrote me and said : ‘You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany, or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.’
“This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America’s greatness. We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people – our strength – from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”
“Perhaps I should mention that our first recipient today – the one who calls me kid – [laughter] – is the son of immigrants, from a country called Ireland.”
Author’s note : The President is referring to Mike Mansfield, former Senate Majority Leader and US Ambassador to Japan.
fredrichlariccia says
How sad that the progressive party of Lincoln and the immigrant welcoming party of Reagan has now devolved to the racist/xenophobic party of Trump.
doubleman says
The GOP has been a racist/xenophobic party for more than 40 years (including when Reagan was in the WH). Its racism and cruelty has been accelerating since then. This did not start with Trump, and it will not end with him. Please do not hold out hope that the GOP is in any way good. It is completely rotten and needs to be destroyed from top to bottom. If we treat Trump as an aberration, we’ll never have progress.
fredrichlariccia says
This post was an attempt to encourage people – especially Republicans who admired Reagan – to stand up and speak out against Trump’s racist xenophobia.
fredrichlariccia says
Trumpist fascism is political ethnic cleansing.
SomervilleTom says
The GOP is directly analogous to the Weimar Republic in its final years. The GOP has been racist and bigoted to its core, as evidenced by its enthusiastic embrace of the racists expelled by the Democratic Party in the immediate aftermath of the 1968 convention.
There is no excuse for anyone to support or even tolerate Mr. Trump today. It is absolutely shameful that Ms. Pelosi continues to do absolutely nothing except cluck-cluck as we watch and hear Mr. Trump encouraging the racist chants at his rally. I am glad that I’m not the only person who recognizes the way that Mr. Trump channels Benito Mussolini.
Whatever rationalizations might have been offered in 2016 attempting to excuse the party that put this tyrant in power are groundless and irrelevant today. We see, hear, and feel what this PARTY is doing to all of us.
We are in a Jihad (“the personal spiritual struggle of every person to follow the teachings of God in their daily lives, and includes overcoming evils such as anger, greed, pride and hatred, forgiving people who hurt them, and working for social justice”), fighting for the spiritual and existential soul of this nation. The forces of Trumpism embrace, celebrate, and advance evil — however we want to define that word.
If there is a difference between truth and lies, good and bad, love and hate, justice and tyranny, and LONG list of similar dichotomies, then the GOP is today on the dark side every item on that list — by design. The GOP has spent decades pandering to people who themselves are on the dark side of that list. Before Mr. Trump, the GOP at least attempted to paint lipstick on its embrace of darkness. That pretense is gone today.
The outcome of this Jihad will not be determined by the ballot box, it will instead determine the results when ballots are counted.
Each and every American faces a historic test today and every day forward until this darkness is eradicated — which side do I choose? Do I embrace truth, good, love, and justice? Or do I embrace lies, bad, hate, and tyranny?
The choice is crystal clear. We do only harm when we try to evade or sugar-coat that choice.
Christopher says
I know what you mean of course, but what do you think will happen on the Right if we start calling this struggle a jihad?
SomervilleTom says
@What will happen on the right?
I think they will go crazy. So what?
Is there a better word? I am talking about an intense make-it-or-break-it internal struggle between our dark and light sides. I’m receptive to any other word that captures the intensity and spiritual essence of this.
I also note that the right declared their Jihad against us generations ago. They have not been reluctant to name me. Here are a few epithets I’ve been hearing about me all my life — “socialist”, “atheist”, “Godless communist”, “Outside agitator”, “anti-American”, “traitor”, “Fellow Traveler”, “Communist Sympathizer” — the list is long. I’ve omitted another long list of epithets that lie outside the BMG vocabulary guidelines.
The Right does not show any reluctance to use this language about the four elected Representatives in question, nor did they hesitate to use similar language about our 2016 nominee or, for that matter, about Barack Obama.
It’s time to quit worrying about winning or losing elections. We won the 2018 mid-term Congressional races, and it has accomplished nothing. This isn’t going to go away, and it’s not going to be resolved by being courteous or careful about hurting somebody’s feelings.
It’s time to call a spade a spade.
Christopher says
“So you want a jihad – you support those Muslim terrorists or something?” and too many will fall for that. It would be a distraction and a loser.
SomervilleTom says
I invite you to offer a better word.
Saying nothing is not an option.
doubleman says
Almost all Republicans are fully onboard with this. If they want to oppose it, the most effective way would be to leave the party and vote Democratic, and they should have done that a long time ago. The fact is Republicans are fully aligned on racial grievance and screwing the poor – it is their identity. They have no ideology.
SomervilleTom says
The actual ideology of the GOP has been White Nationalism since 1968. It is what their “Southern Strategy” means.
doubleman says
I think the white nationalism has become more identity than ideology. It’s why the followers will adopt all sorts of contradictory positions and switch them quickly while maintaining that core identity.
This digs into it quite well. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/12/20690910/donald-trump-justin-amash-republicans-primaries-conservatives?fbclid=IwAR3VhWdTGfpk-wOH8eq9G3hulkde93r2FbFxDHSM3_4B84q7k8NlzYKuz-k
I totally agree that this is something over the past 50 years but I think saying it is an ideology is too generous to these people.
SomervilleTom says
@identity rather than ideology:
Agreed. I was sort of attempting to say the same thing, but clumsily. I meant only that it isn’t new — it’s been there festering, fermenting, and growing for at least fifty years.
terrymcginty says
The nativist, know-nothing, racist strand in American politics has been migrating from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party since 1918.
That journey is now complete. It will make the Republican Party a tiny rump party – unless we screw it up by hounding out the centrists in our mist. The signs are not good that progressives understand that.
fredrichlariccia says
Michelle Obama weighs in today : “What truly makes our country great is its diversity. I’ve seen that beauty in so many ways over the years. Whether we are born here or seek refuge here, there’s a place for us all. We must remember it’s not my America or your America. It’s our America.”
SomervilleTom says
As much as I love the intent of “When they go low, we go high”, I think we’re now at a stage where the more appropriate answer is “When they go low, we kick ’em in the nuts”.
jconway says
I agree we need a big tent to defeat this threat. The centrists and never-Trumper’s need to also understand that it’s the progressives that are driving turnout, driving donations, and driving the debate. Both sides need each other and it’s wrong for the centrists to keep saying “not now, not yet” or “shut up” when we are confronting this fight.
I have little time for the centrist who insists that there is some kind of moral or political equivalency between the racist extremism of Trump and the supposed extremism of AOC. That they are somehow two sides of an equally extreme coin that sensible moderates must equally reject.
Our choices are social democracy or national socialism. I hope the centrists and moderates are just as willing to hold their noses for the former in order to defeat the latter. The vast majority of serious progressives recognize they need the center, do the centrists realize the same?
SomervilleTom says
I think it depends on who “the center” is.
If “the center” is people who voted for slashing essential government services and the social net for the past 30 years because “the deficit needs to be controlled”, and who now vote for unrestrained spending and the hugely expensive GOP tax giveaway, then I think we don’t want them. I think we want to replace those votes with people who express a minimal level of consistency themselves and expect that consistency in their elected officials.
If “the center” is people who claim to be concerned about “the environment” and about “climate change”, and who claim that doing virtually anything is “too expensive”, then I think we can’t afford to listen to them.
If “the center” is people who see, hear, and even participate in these rallies and these chants and either ignore them or join them, then I think we string a twelve foot high barbed wire fence between us and them.
I think your description of the choices is far too optimistic. I think the choice that faces us is a choice between the the rule of law and the rule of the mob. These chants at GOP rallies aren’t for “national socialism”, they are pure blood lust.
We sugarcoat the evil being conjured at these rallies at our extreme peril.
joeltpatterson says
It is certainly true that Republicans in Reagan’s time were more tolerant and welcoming toward immigrants==but let us be absolutely clear about two things:
1) Today’s Republicans will not be persuaded or shamed into better actions by quotes from Ronald Reagan nor by quote from Jesus Christ.
2) The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, passed by Democratic majorities and signed by LBJ eliminated ethnicity and race as categories for immigration,
so let’s remember that the modern Democratic party has the stronger history of welcoming immigrants and opposing bigotry, and never let the Republicans forget it.