Trump’s Deportations, Great Replacement Theory, And White American Nationalism

But of course that level of selfishness – mine, mine, mine! – is only possible to maintain with a huge helping of fear alongside it: fear of the enemy. Fear of “them.”Thus Alexandra Villarreal, writing in the Guardian about Trump 2.0’s first day in office (on Martin Luther King Day), noted: “He immediately involved the military, ordering the armed forces to ‘seal’ the US’s borders ‘by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration.’Be afraid. Be very afraid.She goes on:“This new system at the border – replete with intense militarization and explicit violations of human rights – comes straight from the imagination of the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory, which pushes the racist idea that non-white immigrants are ‘invading’ predominantly white nations and ‘replacing’ white culture.’”Governance is so much simpler when you can conjure up a wicked enemy for your followers to fear, but the cost of doing so can be monstrous – and not simply for those dehumanized as the enemy, who are usually not in positions of power and therefore easily exploited. Those pulled into us-vs.-them consciousness have also seriously minimized their own lives. For instance, Andrea Mazzarino, writing about Trump’s “divisive rhetoric around immigrants, calling them ‘vermin’ who...