Home / Concerns

Nationalism

Nationalism is often conflated with patriotism.

Patriotism is defined as the display of pride and love in one's country coupled with the willingness to defend the nation-state. 

Nationalism is love of country coupled with the belief that one's country is superior to others and that the needs of one's country should take precedence without regard for effects on other nation-states. 

Xenophobia–the fear or hatred of outsiders–is part of extreme nationalism. 

Timeline

2017.02.02Trump's counterterrorism efforts will focus on Islam and not white supremacists, who also have bombed and attacked U.S. citizens. reuters.com (See also Racism, Black Americans)
2017.02.18DHS Secretary Kelly signs memos detailing new guidelines that empower federal agents to more aggressively detain and deport illegal immigrants. washingtonpost.com (See also Immigrants, Immigration)
2017.02.18Pence tries to reassure concerned European leaders, while also warning they must spend more on NATO. nytimes.com (See also National Defense, Europe, Mike Pence)
2017.02.18Trump delivers misstatements and exaggerations to enthusiastic believers in first rally of his 2020 campaign. nytimes.com (See also Fascism, Attempts to Discredit Media, Assaults on Facts)
2017.02.22The Trump administration issues new immigration policies with the goal of empowering agents to strictly enforce deportation laws. washingtonpost.com (See also Immigrants, Fascism, Immigration)
2017.02.22Trump's DHS Secretary, John Kelly, lays out aggressive guidance for vigorously pursuing illegal immigrants. cnn.com (See also Immigrants, Fascism, Immigration, Department of Homeland Security)
2017.03.06Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon describes Islam as "a cancer" and says U.S. is fighting a "global existential war" against Islam in newly surfaced audiotapes. abcnews.go.com (See also Steve Bannon, Muslims, Immigrants)
2017.06.02The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to revive the president’s plan to temporarily ban citizens from six mostly Muslim countries. washingtonpost.com (See also Muslims, Muslim Immigration Ban, Supreme Court)
2017.08.02Trump endorsed a new bill in the Senate aimed at slashing legal immigration levels which would represent a profound change to U.S. immigration policies that have been in place for half a century, favoring people that speak English, and slashing the number of green cards awarded from 1 million to 500,000. washingtonpost.com (See also Immigration, Stephen Miller)
2017.08.02Two close associates of Pope Francis have accused American Catholic ultraconservatives of making an alliance of “hate” with evangelical Christians to back President Trump, focusing on Steve Bannon as a “supporter of an apocalyptic geopolitics” that has stymied action against climate change and exploited fears of migrants and Muslims with calls for “walls and purifying deportations.” nytimes.com (See also Steve Bannon, Racism, Muslims)
2017.08.15In a long, combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the president repeatedly rejected a torrent of bipartisan criticism for waiting two days before naming the right-wing groups and placing blame on “many sides” for the violence in Charlottesville that ended with the death of a young woman after a car crashed into a crowd. nytimes.com (See also Racism, Anti-Semitism, Unpresidential Behavior)
2017.08.16Two of Donald Trump’s councils of top business leaders are disbanding following Tuesday’s controversial remarks by the president about the weekend’s violence in Virginia. wsj.com (See also Racism, Anti-Semitism)
Mr. Trump tweeted Wednesday that he was ending the councils, only *after* one of the councils had planned to disband after a conference call of its executives.
2017.08.16White nationalist leader David Duke on Tuesday thanked Trump for blaming violence in Charlottesville, Va., on the "alt-left." thehill.com (See also Anti-Semitism, Racism)
2017.08.18House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed a call to censure Donald Trump for his response to the violent white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia. politico.com (See also Unprecedented Actions, Unpresidential Behavior, Anti-Semitism, Racism)
2017.08.18The remaining members of a presidential arts and humanities panel resigned in yet another sign of growing national protest of Trump’s recent comments on the violence in Charlottesville. washingtonpost.com (See also Unprecedented Actions, Unpresidential Behavior, Racism, Anti-Semitism)
2017.08.20An expanding number of organizations that had planned to hold galas at the president’s Florida resort - Mar-a-Lago - are deciding to raise money elsewhere. nytimes.com (See also Conflicts of Interest, Unpresidential Behavior, Racism, Anti-Semitism)
2017.08.23A UN committee charged with tackling racism has issued an “early warning” over conditions in the US and urged the Trump administration to “unequivocally and unconditionally” reject discrimination. theguardian.com (See also Unprecedented Actions, Racism)
In the past decade, the only other countries that have been issued similar warnings were Burundi, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, and Nigeria.
2017.08.23Seven members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, which includes Obama appointees, resigned this week, citing Trump’s Charlottesville response and other actions which they say threaten Homeland Security. huffingtonpost.com (See also Unpresidential Behavior, Racism, Anti-Semitism)
2017.08.25More than one-quarter of a panel tasked with advising the Homeland Security Department on cybersecurity and infrastructure protection resigned en masse, citing Trump’s “insufficient attention” to the nation’s cyber vulnerabilities, his response to racist violence in Charlottesville, withdrawing from the Paris Accord, among other complaints. defenseone.com (See also Racism, Environment, John Kelly, Department of Homeland Security)
2017.08.25Sebastian Gorka, a controversial White House staffer who served as a fiery spokesman for Trump on national security matters, abruptly left the administration. washingtonpost.com (See also Steve Bannon, Trump Cabinet, John Kelly)
2017.09.14Donald Trump again drew a parallel between white supremacists and counter protesters, drawing a mild rebuke from South Carolina’s Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate who met with Trump to discuss racial issues a day earlier. bloomberg.com (See also Racism, Anti-Semitism)
2017.09.23Donald Trump appeared at a campaign rally in Huntsville, Ala., veering off topic, and eventually landing on a few controversial points regarding the NFL and players peacefully protesting violence against African-Americans. washingtonpost.com (See also Racism, Black Americans, Unpresidential Behavior)
2017.09.24The Trump administration announced new restrictions on visitors from eight countries — an expansion of an existing travel ban that has spurred fierce legal debates over security, immigration and discrimination, adding Chad, North Korea and Venezuela to the new indefinite ban. washingtonpost.com (See also Muslim Immigration Ban, Racism, North Korea, Foreign Policy, Iran)
2017.09.25The Department of Homeland Security is planning to collect social media information on all immigrants, including permanent residents and naturalized citizens, a move that has alarmed lawyers and privacy groups. buzzfeed.com (See also Fascism, Assaults on Civil Liberties, Department of Homeland Security)
2017.10.17Republican Senator John McCain implicitly excoriated Donald Trump's administration and supporters, saying that "to refuse the obligations of international leadership ... for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism ... is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past." buzzfeed.com (See also Fascism)

Analysis

Trump's campaign slogan--Make America Great Again--is viewed by many as an expression of nationalism rather than patriotism because it has been coupled with denigration of other nations.