Anti-immigrant rhetoric: is it an echo of the 1930s?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Hardline rhetoric about immigration in Europe and the United States underlines a resurgence of nationalism and has some commentators comparing the current era to the 1930s. Is the parallel justified?

From Donald Trump to Italy's Matteo Salvini, Hungary's Viktor Orban to Belgium's Theo Francken, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly demonised illegal immigrants in their public statements.

Trump has warned they want to "pour into and infest our country", Orban says Africa "wants to kick down our door", while Salvini has called for a census of the Roma community which opponents see as having echoes of measures targeting Jews in the past.

Some critics say the language recalls the hateful oratory of Nazis and fascists who came to power between the two World Wars promising to protect and purge their countries.

"Trump's hardline view of immigration draws parallels to the 1930s," was the headline on a recent column from The Washington Post, while an opinion piece in The Guardian stated: "Inspired by Trump, the world could be heading back to the 1930s".

German magazine Stern recently depicted Trump on its cover giving a Nazi salute.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/anti-immigrant-rhetoric-is-it-an-echo-of-the-1930s/ar-AAzutHR?li=BBnbcA1

[Hekate]

1. Yes

[appalachiablue]

2. Unfortunately it is, and the 1930s were heavily influenced by eugenics

philosophy there, in Europe and the US since the 19th c., at least.

[uponit7771]

3. YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[appalachiablue]

4. Kick

[JHB]

5. It's an echo of the 1920s

The 1920s were the time the KKK reached its greatest extent, and outside of the South it was their loudly anti-immigrant and pro-Protestant stance is that was their main draw.

After all, we were getting all these non-Nprthern European riff-raff: Italians, Poles, Jews, Japanese, etc. And they weren't stout Protestants like real Americans. Catholics were beholden to a foreign prince, Jews were Jews, and those Orientals were a heathen lot. Foreign religions all. The Irish were bad enough, send the new ones back to where they came from!

While the Klan's hatred of black people is rightly at the forefront of any discussion of them, never lose sight that they hated anyone who wasn't white, native-born, and Protestant.