Without a doubt, President Trump\u2019s most electric platform during his bid for candidacy was an appeal to nationalism. We all remember the slogan, the hats, the footage of roaring crowds at rallies across the country. Trump\u2019s nationalism, throughout his campaign, aroused near-hysteria within his constituent base, it seemed \u2014 so much so that he eventually became unstoppable.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump appears to be almost totally bulletproof,\u201d cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Bobby Azarian said of the nominee a month before elections.<\/p>\n
Even with all the controversy surrounding his character, the idea of making America great again, apparently, was unifying enough to win him the presidency.<\/p>\n
But even at his most convincing, for me, the pitch fell flat. His definition of \u201cgreatness\u201d was evidently different from mine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will build a great wall,\u201d as he said in June of 2015, felt hyperbolic and uncalled for; and the fact that \u201cI will have Mexico pay for that wall\u201d rung in every rally venue for months left a bad taste in my mouth.<\/p>\n
In the same month, he said about America\u2019s economy, \u201cOur country is in serious trouble,\u201d and not many of us could disagree. 2008 was fresh on the mind, after all. But his rhetoric very quickly turned antagonistic: \u201cWhen was the last time anybody saw us beating, let\u2019s say, China in a trade deal?\u201d he said in the same speech. \u201cI beat China all the time. All the time.\u201d But here, he lost me again. When has trade ever been about \u201cwinning\u201d?<\/p>\n
And then, in December of the same year, he said of himself, just days after the Bernardino shooting, \u201cDonald J. Trump is calling for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country\u2019s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.\u201d And finally, I realized what was happening.<\/p>\n
Though his advocating for the \u201cwall,\u201d his flouting a track-record of aggressive \u201cbusiness prowess\u201d and his blatant Islamophobia relate to independent political issues, they all reflect the rather overt dark side of his nationalism. His brand of \u201cnationalism\u201d is dehumanizing, even demonizing.<\/p>\n
President Trump\u2019s recent proposal to end \u201cbirthright citizenship\u201d through an executive order represents the ugliest manifestation of his dehumanization. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d he told Axios in an interview released Tuesday. \u201cAnd it has to end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has long argued that children of undocumented or illegal parents born on US soil should not be recognized as citizens, but to suggest overriding the 14th Amendment does not only undermine the constitution\u2019s fundamental definition of citizenship, it also affronts the basic personhood of countless coworkers, classmates and friends of mine \u2014 the basic humanity of so many refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants and immigrants who come to this country, fighting for the same basic opportunities so many Americans take for granted.<\/p>\n
His plan does not only offend the Christian conviction that \u201cyou are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God\u2019s people and also members of his household\u201d (Ephesians 2:19, NIV), it also tresspasses the basic truth that \u201call men are created equal,\u201d and that \u201call those born in the United States share in that equity,\u201d as argued by Neal Katyal for The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
His plan does not only contradict this country\u2019s history and promise \u201cas a nation of immigrants\u201d (as worded by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service\u2019s original mission statement, which has since been revised by the Trump administration\u2019s appointee to remove this phrasing), it also echoes the very sentiment that the 1868 Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted to eradicate: that slaves, and the children of slaves, could not be citizens (q.v. the 1857 \u201cDred Scott v. Sandford\u201d decision). That slaves and the children of slaves were counted as less than human \u2014 as only three-fifths human, in fact.<\/p>\n
His plan is unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,\u201d says the 14th Amendment.<\/p>\n
If \u201cAmerica First\u201d has come to mean \u201cAmerica Alone,\u201d then I stand with the seven billion, three hundred seventy-four million, three hundred thousand people that live on the other side of Trump\u2019s wall (that\u2019s 96 percent of the population of the earth). We are not \u201cOne Nation Under God,\u201d we are \u201cOne World.\u201d Period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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