Media personalities associated with the white nationalist movement in the United States and abroad are defending President Donald Trump after he tweeted racist remarks, saying that four progressive women of color in Congress should “go back” to the countries they “originally came from.” (Three of those women were born in the U.S., but are being depicted by Trump as immigrants.)
Telling immigrants and people of color to “go back” to where they came from is a centuries-old racist sentiment fundamental to the white nationalist worldview, which seeks to implement and enforce racist government policies to ensure white supermajorities in the countries in which the white nationalists reside. Part of that policy vision, should white nationalists successfully obtain enough power in government to enact their agenda, includes detaining non-white immigrants and forcibly ejecting them from the United States.
On Sunday, President Trump claimed in a tweet that progressive Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who are women of color and U.S. citizens, "originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe" and should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” instead of criticizing the United States’ policies and suggesting alternatives. (Among the members of the group, only Omar, a Somali refugee, was born outside the U.S.) He added that he was sure that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been at odds with the progressive congresswomen regarding recent immigration legislation, “would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
In the days since his tweet, Trump has faced criticism and right-wing media have worked overtime to defend his comments, alongside unabashed white supremacists who have cheered Trump’s remarks. Chas Danner at New York magazine’s Intelligencer wrote that Trump’s attack on the four congresswomen “deployed one of the most obnoxious clichés of racist and xenophobic hate speech: telling an immigrant or descendant of immigrants to ‘go back to your country.’”
Today, Trump doubled down on his original statement and insisted “Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” He then continued to attack the four congresswomen.
When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said. So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2019
White nationalists, although having grown skeptical of the Trump administration for its support of Israel, still circled their wagons around Trump, defending the remarks against criticisms that they are stoking racial animosity in the United States.
Paul Ray Ramsey, a white nationalist who is known as “Ramzpaul” online, tweeted that the progressive congresswomen were “elected from their fellow tribesmen who were imported into America” and only love the United States for “the wealth that they can loot.” He added that “they dance with glee with the thought of eliminating us.” Patrick Casey, the leader of the white nationalist organization Identity Evropa (which has rebranded under a new name), wrote on Twitter that although he still has reservations about the Trump administration’s current policy trajectory, “Trump escalating his attacks on these four horrid women—women who simply do not belong in America, let alone in our government—is more than a little satisfying.”
Scott Greer, a disgraced Daily Caller editor who was fired after it was revealed he was writing articles in a white nationalist publication under a false name, praised Trump and wrote that the day he tweeted his attack on the congresswomen was “the day he became president.” Greer has longstanding connections to white nationalist circles in and around Washington.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a Republican former congressman, compared Trump’s rhetoric toward the congresswomen to that of David Duke, a longtime Klu Klux Klan leader whom Trump declined chances to disavow while on the campaign trail. Duke, who, like some other white supremacists, has slowly soured on Trump, took issue with that comparison, asserting that Trump would never praise white people as explicitly as Duke does.
But not everybody's happy. White nationalist Matt Parrott ruefully wrote that Trump “doesn't create white tribalism” with racist tweets, but rather “exploits the white tribalism which has been bubbling up and boiling over long before he even rode down the gilded escalator.” And Brad Griffin, who authors the blog Occidental Dissent under the name “Hunter Wallace,” seems to have had his fill of Trump, writing that Trump wasn’t “stoking white nationalism” in his tweets, since white nationalists “aren’t supporting him anymore.” Wallace alleged that Trump’s comments were really about the progressive women’s “lack of subservience to Israel.”
