The New Know-Nothings
By 
The United States has a highly mixed record on immigration. It likes to claim that it is pro-immigrant, but it is only pro-past immigration. It never really or has been pro-current immigration. That is not to say that it is always the same on immigration. There are times when the nation is relatively tolerant of immigrants and there are times when it is full-fledged racial hatred. I had already thought this for some years, but if it wasn’t clear before, it is now–this nation and the Republican Party’s racist rhetoric about Haitian immigrants supposedly eating pets is a clear sign that this nation has now returned to full-fledged race hate. In fact, this very specific version of racism, that immigrants either eat pets or rats, has a long history, as the above image from 1877 shows.
This is truly the most despicable shit. It is beyond appalling, fuck these people forever pic.twitter.com/thJJn7QES9
— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) September 10, 2024
There were panics about refugees eating rats in the 1980s. These were quickly followed by hate crimes against refugees, spearheaded by white power activists but employing local communities incited by that rhetoric. (1)
— Kathleen Belew (@kathleen_belew) September 10, 2024
Belew is always worth following on these issues, one of our very top scholars on the return of white far right extremism.
Except it’s not far right anymore. I doubt many Democrats are embracing the “Haitians eat cats” lines of Ted Cruz. But they have returned to the long-standing position of white moderates on race, which is that they don’t actually care. Both Biden and Harris have promoted Trumpist circa 2016 versions of anti-immigrant sentiment if not the language around it, while Trump not admits that blood will be shed and he is excited to shed it if he is elected. In short, there is no major political movement in this country to be where we were on immigration between the 1965 Immigration Act and, say, 2000. We are far, far to the right on this issue compared to the late twentieth century and that includes both political parties. So between “Build the Wall” one one end and “Kill ’em All” on the other, we are as bad today as we were when we excluded the Chinese in 1882, the Japanese in 1907, the Filipinos in 1934, etc.
But hey, at least some Irish American Trump voters will get a good laugh about it all eating their corned beef and cabbage at the Knights of Columbus hall next March.
Maybe there is evidence that enough people care that Harris could do something here to attack Trump on the issue, though unfortunately, it seems that post-convention she has decided to play the Mark Penn-style of most conservative campaigning possible, which is the subject for another post. But if there was a race riot against Haitians thanks to Trump and Cruz and these other racists and a few Haitians died, do you think it would make a difference in our national political conversation on immigration? I do not. And can you imagine the political conversation if a Haitian shot back and killed a white guy? This is the return of Know-Nothingism.