Election 2016
Trump's Sick Predecessors: 6 Racist Bullies Who Stirred Up Americans' Basest Instincts
The Donald did not invent this particular brand of xenophobia and demagoguery.
By David Rosen / AlterNet
December 10, 2015
77 COMMENTS
With the help of the mainstream media, Donald Trump is fueling a deep-seated nativist paranoia that has a long history in this country. Loud-mouthed political bullies have been part of the American political system since its earliest days. America’s past is littered with the legacies of political demagogues like Trump and some of his Republican cronies
Here are six demagogues from American history who riled up Americans' basest instincts.
1. John Adams (1735-1825). One of the nation’s Founding Fathers, Adams led the first anti-immigrant and anti-free-speech campaigns, and his efforts were successful. He led the congressional campaign to pass four laws in 1798 known as the Alien & Sedition Acts. As the second president, Adams warned of the dangers of foreign influence within the U.S. and said they must be "exterminated."
In the wake of the French Revolution and the ongoing wars between France and Britain, the nation was divided. The Federalists, led by Adams, backed the British and were opposed to the radical ideas inspired by France Revolution, while the Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were more sympathetic of the French. The battle over the Alien & Sedition Acts was posed as loyalty to the Constitution versus loyalty to the U.S. government. Jefferson’s election in 1800 ended the tyranny of the Alien & Sedition Acts.
2. Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) was the 13th president. After leaving office in 1853, he championed a virulent anti-immigrant movement know as the Know Nothings. The movement grew out of the Second Great Awakening or the Great Revival of the 1830s and became the American Party, which flourished during the late '40s and early ‘50s. It got its name when members were asked the party’s positions and simply said, "I know nothing."
Religious intolerance led to numerous anti-Catholic attacks, including the burning of churches, random beatings and the killings of ostensible Catholics in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Louisville, where 22 people were murdered. In the 1850s, the American Party captured the Massachusetts legislature in 1854; in 1856, it backed Millard Fillmore for president, who secured nearly 1 million votes, a quarter of all votes cast. The movement collapsed in the face of the Civil War.
3. A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936). As attorney general from 1919 to 1921, he recruited J. Edgar Hoover as a special assistant to oversee what became known as the Palmer Raids, the mass arrest and/or deportation of alleged subversives. In the wake of WWI, he warned that communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman." The Sedition Act (1918) expanded the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover the expression of any opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light.
In June 1919, Palmer’s Washington D.C. house was bombed, followed by bombings in seven other cities killing two people. In response, Palmer launched a series of raids. On Nov. 7, 1919, on the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution, over 10,000 alleged communists and anarchists were arrested on suspicion of planning a revolutionary uprising. No evidence was found, nevertheless, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and another 245 people were deported to Russia. On Jan. 2, 1920, Hoover rounded up another 6,000 alleged subversives, who were held without trial. Following Palmer's announcement that a communist revolution was likely to take place on May 1, mass panic took place. In New York, five elected socialists were expelled from the legislature.
4. Karl Bendetsen (1907-1989) was the architect of Japanese-American internment during WWII. While the FBI and the Office of Naval Intelligence found that the vast majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry were loyal, Bendetsen took a hard line against all Japanese Americans. He drafted what became known as Executive Order 9066, which President Franklin Roosevelt signed on Feb. 19, 1942, ordering the forced relocation and incarceration of between 110,000 and 120,000 Japanese Americans living along the West Coast. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of those interned were loyal U.S. citizens. Bendetsen ordered that any person with "one drop of Japanese blood" had to be interned, including infants and children in orphanages and even hospital patients, some of whom died on the way to a prison camp. He even opposed Japanese American soldiers serving in the war effort from returning to the West Coast.
In 1988, Pres. Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act to compensate more than 100,000 Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated in WWII internment camps. The legislation offered a formal apology and paid out $20,000 in compensation to each surviving victim.
5. Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957). In February 1950, Sen. McCarthy (R-WI) announced in Wheeling, WV, “I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party.” McCarthy’s list was never formally made public and he kept changing the number of alleged communists depending on the audience he was addressing
McCarthy investigated communist subversives as well as “homosexuals and other sex perverts” working for the government. In 1953, he held hearings at New York’s federal courthouse grilling subversive writers, notably the novelist Howard Fast, newspaper columnist Drew Pearson and Louis Budenz, the former editor of the Daily Worker. In 1954, in a hearing over alleged communists in the U.S. Army, he had his legendary showdown with Joseph Welch, counsel to the Army. Welch asked simply: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” The encounter broke McCarthy; he was stripped of his committee chairmanship and died in ’57, a drunk, defeated man.
6. David Duke (b/1950). This neo-Nazi political pugilist has sputtered at the periphery of U.S. politics for nearly five decades and now calls Austria home. Earlier this year he came out for Trump, reportedly declaring, "Trump is really going all out. He's saying what no other Republicans have said, few conservatives say."
As a student at Louisiana State University, Duke was enamored of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the postwar American Nazi Party, who he called "the greatest American who ever lived." In 1970, he founded the White Youth Alliance, a student group affiliated with the National Socialist White People's Party. A couple of years later, he founded the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, and in the words of the Southern Poverty Law Center, oversaw the “Nazification of the Klan” by shifting its ideological target from racism to anti-Semitism.
In the late ‘70s, looking to move up the political food chain, Duke ran for a seat in the Louisiana Senate as a conservative Democrat but lost. In 1981, he set up the National Association for the Advancement of White People, which a critic called, the "Klan without the sheets." In ’89 and running as a Republican, he won a special low-turnout election to the Louisiana State House, and in 1990, he ran in the primary for a U.S. Senate seat and lost. The following year he ran for governor—it was a runoff election with the Democratic candidate, Edwin Edwards, and Duke lost again. In 2002, his past caught up with him; he was arrested and pleaded guilty to felony mail and tax fraud charges and he served 15 months in a federal prison and was fined $10,000.
Excellent and informative. Funny how he said during the debate that the war in Iraq was totally wrong, and got applause. Whatever happened to the scum who pimped that war, like Cheney and Yahoo of Israel? Maybe the Republicans aren't quite as clueless as I thought...
With the help of the mainstream media, Donald Trump is fueling a deep-seated nativist paranoia that has a long history in this country. Loud-mouthed political bullies have been part of the American political system since its earliest days. America’s past is littered with the legacies of political demagogues like Trump and some of his Republican cronies
[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Here are six demagogues from American history who riled up Americans' basest instincts. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Here are six demagogues from American history who riled up Americans' basest instincts. [/FONT]
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December 17, 2015. Journalists before the annual news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the World Trade Center on Krasnaya Presnya. © Michael Klimentyev / Sputnik
December 17, 2015. Journalists before the annual news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the World Trade Center on Krasnaya Presnya. © Michael Klimentyev / Sputnik
Touching on next year's US presidential election, the Russian leader called Donald Trump a "very colourful, talented person" and the "absolute frontrunner in the presidential race".
December 17, 2015. Journalists before the annual news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the World Trade Center on Krasnaya Presnya. © Michael Klimentyev / Sputnik
Touching on next year's US presidential election, the Russian leader called Donald Trump a "very colourful, talented person" and the "absolute frontrunner in the presidential race".
December 17, 2015. Journalists before the annual news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the World Trade Center on Krasnaya Presnya. © Michael Klimentyev / Sputnik
December 17, 2015. Journalists before the annual news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the World Trade Center on Krasnaya Presnya. © Michael Klimentyev / Sputnik
Touching on next year's US presidential election, the Russian leader called Donald Trump a "very colourful, talented person" and the "absolute frontrunner in the presidential race".
You DO realize that if Trump becomes the nominee, there will be commercials showing how he and Putin were shining each other's knob, don't you?
After the main part of the Q&A session was over, Putin was asked about his attitude towards Donald Trump.
“It’s not our business to define his accomplishments,” Putin said. “But he is the absolute leader of the presidential race [in the US]”.
“He is a bright, talented person, no doubt about that,” Putin added. Trump recently stated he would like to see the US strengthen ties with Russia. “We welcome that of course,” said Putin.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump © Mike Blake / Reuters
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump responded to Vladimir Putin’s comment, in which the Russian president called Trump “the absolute front-runner,” stating that it was a “great honor” to receive praise from a “highly respected” leader like Putin.
While the majority of Democrat and Republican candidates have been scoring points by criticizing Russia, Trump has taken a different tone, saying he wants to work with Moscow if elected.
“I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect,” he reiterated on Thursday.
Trump has said in the past that he sees himself getting along with Putin. “I would get along with him,” Trump said in September. “I would get along with a lot of the world leaders that this country is not getting along with.”
Trump has also expressed strong support for Russia’s bombing campaign against terrorist groups in Syria, which started on September 30 following a formal request from Damascus.
“I like that Putin is bombing the hell out of ISIS,” Trump said in October. “I’ll tell you why. Putin has to get rid of ISIS ’cause Putin does not want ISIS coming into Russia,” he added.
Donald Trump Jr. on Instagram: “Thank you @jimmykimmel for the great book. 
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Ten Reasons for Supporting Trump
1. Donald Trump is immune to special interest lobbying because he has accepted no donations or special interest money. No other candidate can make this claim.
2. Donald Trump knows how to negotiate. No one builds an international business empire the size of Mr. Trump’s without being able to win at the negotiating table.
3. Donald Trump is an executive. The President of the United States is the Chief Executive Officer of our nation. We don’t need a policy expert or a legislator – we need someone who knows how to run an organization. Mr. Trump is the only candidate who has a proven record as a successful executive on a large scale.
4. Donald Trump is honest. Mr. Trump is a man who tells the truth. He may not always say it in the most polished way, but our country has had enough suave liars. It is time for some straight forward honesty.
5. Donald Trump is decisive. We hear about his having business interests that filed for bankruptcy. In each case, he looked at the situation as it was, and then he cut his losses. We need someone who will look at government programs realistically and if they are failures; will end the wasteful Washington spending.
6. Donald Trump is courageous. Mr. Trump has been viciously attacked by the Washington establishment and the media – and he has not budged one inch. In other words, he is willing to take charge and lead.
7. Donald Trump listens. At Trump Presidential events, the audience gets to actually speak to him without being screened, and he responds without a teleprompter.
8. Donald Trump understands that a nation without borders, language and laws is not a nation.
9. Donald Trump has actually read the Bill of Rights, and is willing to defend its provisions. He is not afraid to speak about Christian persecution, and protecting gun rights.
10. Donald Trump loves this country – and says so. He wants to make America great again.
1. Donald Trump is immune to special interest lobbying because he has accepted no donations or special interest money. No other candidate can make this claim.
2. Donald Trump knows how to negotiate. No one builds an international business empire the size of Mr. Trump’s without being able to win at the negotiating table.
3. Donald Trump is an executive. The President of the United States is the Chief Executive Officer of our nation. We don’t need a policy expert or a legislator – we need someone who knows how to run an organization. Mr. Trump is the only candidate who has a proven record as a successful executive on a large scale.
4. Donald Trump is honest. Mr. Trump is a man who tells the truth. He may not always say it in the most polished way, but our country has had enough suave liars. It is time for some straight forward honesty.
5. Donald Trump is decisive. We hear about his having business interests that filed for bankruptcy. In each case, he looked at the situation as it was, and then he cut his losses. We need someone who will look at government programs realistically and if they are failures; will end the wasteful Washington spending.
6. Donald Trump is courageous. Mr. Trump has been viciously attacked by the Washington establishment and the media – and he has not budged one inch. In other words, he is willing to take charge and lead.
7. Donald Trump listens. At Trump Presidential events, the audience gets to actually speak to him without being screened, and he responds without a teleprompter.
8. Donald Trump understands that a nation without borders, language and laws is not a nation.
9. Donald Trump has actually read the Bill of Rights, and is willing to defend its provisions. He is not afraid to speak about Christian persecution, and protecting gun rights.
10. Donald Trump loves this country – and says so. He wants to make America great again.
k:Poll shows Obama with an incredible 86 percent disapproval rate among Republicans as he heads out of town for his Hawaiian holiday
.
The tally is in, and President Barack Obama is on most Republicans' naughty list this year, while GOP White House candidate Donald Trump is on the nice list.
Obama has an incredible 86 percent disapproval rating in a Morning Consult poll released today.
And 87 percent of the respondents said the country is on the wrong track.
+3
The tally is in, and President Barack Obama is on most Republicans' naughty list this year, while GOP White House candidate Donald Trump is on the nice list. Obama has an incredible 86 percent disapproval rating in a Morning Consult poll released today
.
The poll also gave Donald Trump an unusually high boost to 70 percent in a general election scenario against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had 15 percent of voters' support
.
The Republican survey results do not square with broader surveys, in which the president has had, at most, a 54 percent disapproval rating, and a 51.9 percent unfavorable rating on average among all Americans.
Still, the poll highlights the malcontent with the president's leadership as the year comes to a close and Obama heads to Hawaii for an annual, 17-day vacation.
He leaves the White House early this evening and arrives in Hawaii overnight after a stop in San Bernardino, California, to meet with the families of victims in a terror-related attack earlier this month.
The poll also gave Donald Trump an unusually high boost to 70 percent in a general election scenario against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had 15 percent of voters' support.
Trump's Republican primary election numbers were on par with other recent polls that have put him 20 points or more ahead of his competitors.
In the Morning Consult survey, 36 percent of GOP voters gave Trump the nod, while 12 percent said they were backing Ben Carson. Another 11 percent chose Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio had nine percent and seven percent chose Jeb Bush.
Everyone else included included in the poll had less than five percent backing them.
In terms of issues most-affecting Republican leaning voters, 38 percent put security at the top, followed by the economy at 29 percent.
Far down the list were health care at 10 percent and 'senior's issues' at 10 percent as well.
.
- Another 87 percent of respondents said the country is on the wrong track
- The poll also gave Donald Trump an unusually high boost to 70 percent in a general election scenario against Hillary Clinton
- In terms of issues most-affecting voters, 38 percent put security at the top, followed by the economy at 29 percent
.
The tally is in, and President Barack Obama is on most Republicans' naughty list this year, while GOP White House candidate Donald Trump is on the nice list.
Obama has an incredible 86 percent disapproval rating in a Morning Consult poll released today.
And 87 percent of the respondents said the country is on the wrong track.
+3
The tally is in, and President Barack Obama is on most Republicans' naughty list this year, while GOP White House candidate Donald Trump is on the nice list. Obama has an incredible 86 percent disapproval rating in a Morning Consult poll released today
.
The poll also gave Donald Trump an unusually high boost to 70 percent in a general election scenario against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had 15 percent of voters' support
.
The Republican survey results do not square with broader surveys, in which the president has had, at most, a 54 percent disapproval rating, and a 51.9 percent unfavorable rating on average among all Americans.
Still, the poll highlights the malcontent with the president's leadership as the year comes to a close and Obama heads to Hawaii for an annual, 17-day vacation.
He leaves the White House early this evening and arrives in Hawaii overnight after a stop in San Bernardino, California, to meet with the families of victims in a terror-related attack earlier this month.
The poll also gave Donald Trump an unusually high boost to 70 percent in a general election scenario against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had 15 percent of voters' support.
Trump's Republican primary election numbers were on par with other recent polls that have put him 20 points or more ahead of his competitors.
In the Morning Consult survey, 36 percent of GOP voters gave Trump the nod, while 12 percent said they were backing Ben Carson. Another 11 percent chose Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio had nine percent and seven percent chose Jeb Bush.
Everyone else included included in the poll had less than five percent backing them.
In terms of issues most-affecting Republican leaning voters, 38 percent put security at the top, followed by the economy at 29 percent.
Far down the list were health care at 10 percent and 'senior's issues' at 10 percent as well.
.
