WashPo Attacks Trump: Arguing Immigration Changes Cultures For Worse Is 'A Staple Of White Nationalism'

From the standpoint of international relations, President Trump’s interview with the British newspaper the Sun certainly wasn’t very helpful, the equivalent of walking up to a friend’s house for dinner while loudly telling someone on the phone how terrible you think your friend’s house looks.

In the context of domestic politics, though, the more surprising comments were ones addressing the surge in migration to Europe following the Syrian civil war and other regional unrest.

“Allowing the immigration to take place in Europe is a shame,” Trump said. “I think it changed the fabric of Europe and, unless you act very quickly, it’s never going to be what it was and I don’t mean that in a positive way.

“So I think allowing millions and millions of people to come into Europe is very, very sad,” he continued. “I think you are losing your culture. Look around. You go through certain areas that didn’t exist ten or 15 years ago.”

That argument — that immigration changes existing “culture” for the worse — is a staple of white nationalist rhetoric in the United States.

Trump has never explicitly argued that immigration is a threat to white Americans, but he’s made numerous comments in the past that tiptoe around that point. When Trump earlier this year was reported to have disparaged migrants from Haiti and Africa as arriving from “s—hole” countries (preferring migrants from countries like Norway), racists and white nationalists celebrated the description and the distinction he drew. Former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke explained the racist rationale on Twitter: “Immigration, along with nonwhite birthrates will lead to Whites becoming a hated minority totally vulnerable to the political, social, & economic will of anti-Whites.” Nonwhite migrants are seen by these groups as a threat to white culture.

It’s true, of course, that immigration does change the “fabric” of a nation. Where Trump differs from most — and where he seemingly agrees with white nationalists — is that this is a negative.