Why we can't underestimate the white nationalist caucus taking shape in Congress

[Nevilledog]

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Kevin M. Kruse
@KevinMKruse
My new @MSNBCDaily column on thr defenders of “Anglo-Saxon” culture.

Why we can’t underestimate the white nationalist caucus taking shape in Congress
The ‘America First Caucus’ continues the country’s long history of white nationalism.
msnbc.com
5:01 AM · Apr 17, 2021

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/gop-s-new-america-first-caucus-follows-some-blatantly-white-n1264361

A newly formed “America First Caucus” in Congress, supported by a few far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives, is looking to recruit new members with an old set of arguments.

These white nationalist tropes found a receptive audience in the American people.

Its platform, now circulating in Washington, is little more than a retread of the white nationalist screeds of the 1910s and 1920s.

“America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon traditions,” asserts the section on immigration. “History has shown that societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country.”

A century ago, these same sorts of arguments about the “Anglo-Saxon” character of the United States and the threat that “foreign” elements would bring to its politics and culture were quite widespread.

During the late 1910s, as the United States reeled from a deadly pandemic, economic turmoil, race riots and a surge in immigration all at once, these white nationalist tropes found a receptive audience in the American people.

Bestselling books made the case. Madison Grant’s 1916 “The Passing of the Great Race” complained about unwanted demographic changes in terms familiar to us today. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, he warned, were not reproducing children fast enough to keep pace with “the Slovak, the Italian, the Syrian, and the Jew.” Established “old stock” Americans, he grumbled, were “being literally driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Polish Jews.”

*snip*

[Pinback]

1. What about the Jutes?

They extol the Angles and Saxons but not the Jutes. What's up with that? Soon we'll be seeing parades of torch-bearing preppies chanting "Jutes will not replace us"!

I think it's high time we had a reckoning. Surely reparations are due the long-suffering descendants of the Jutes.

Then again, if you go back enough millenia, we're all descended from Africans, so these idiots really need to get over themselves.

[BobTheSubgenius]

4. CRADN! Remember CRADN!!!

[Pinback]

5. Ha! Had to look that one up.

Been a while since I reviewed my Beowulf flash cards.

You're right, though -- they're completely ignoring the Celts, Romans, Danes, and Normans. I'm guessing the members of the America First caucus are not scholars of history -- or much of anything else.

Looking forward to the "Release the CRADN!" memes.

[BobTheSubgenius]

9. Me too!!!

You should start them. Pics of Celts, Romans and Normans ought to be easy enough to find. I can't recall ever seeing a picture of an ancient Danish warrior, but I imagine you could slip a Viking past them easily enough.

Speaking of Beowulf...my son read that tome in the summer between either Grades 5 and 6, or 6 and 7. I'd have thought it was too much of a slog, but he loved it.

[demmiblue]

2. K&R

[H2O Man]

3. Recommended.

This is essential reading. Quite literally, the future of this country is at stake. Thank you for posting it, as it is a reminder that now is the time to begin preparing for the 2022 elections. There is no time to waste.

[Nevilledog]

7. ...

[luckone]

6. 2022 dont laugh too long like a lot of people did in 2016 at trump or b4 2010 the tea party

[crickets]

8. K&R for visibility.