We live in an era of change. The United States is becoming less white, less religious, and features less economic mobility than in past eras. Even those who have been spared from economic pain have been infected with anxiety.
Enter the exploiters

What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc. This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a 5 time deported Mexican with a long criminal record, who was forced back into the United States because they didn’t want him in Mexico. This is merely one of thousands of similar incidents throughout the United States. In other words, the worst elements in Mexico are being pushed into the United States by the Mexican
government. The largest suppliers of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs are Mexican cartels that arrange to have Mexican immigrants trying to cross the borders and smuggle in the drugs. The Border Patrol knows this. Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border.
Donald Trump
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-epic-statement-on-mexico-2015-7#ixzz3kJDh0ba0



But, there is nothing new under the sun.
We never need look very far into the past to see how frequently history repeats itself.

In the news are headlines about xenophobic political statements made to curry favor with the far right -- suggestions to end birthright citizenship, baseless accusations about immigrant populations incubating crime and violence, and dehumanizing rhetoric aimed at immigrants, especially Hispanic ones.

I just finished rereading an old favorite, John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," and was struck by how some things -- anxiety and aggression toward perceived invaders -- just never change.

Set during the Great Depression on the road between Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and California's Central Valley, Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel takes us onto the Joad family's rickety truck to witness their descent from hardscrabble farmers to detested migrant workers.

Steinbeck described the degradation that comes with succumbing to severe poverty and didn't overlook its effect on those who had been spared.

The hostility, Steinbeck wrote, "made the little towns group and arm as though to repel an invader, squads with pick handles, clerks and storekeepers with shotguns, guarding the world against their own people. ... And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights ...

"They said, These goddamned Okies are dirty and ignorant. They're degenerate, sexual maniacs. These goddamned Okies are thieves. They'll steal anything. They've got no sense of property rights. ... And the defending people said, They bring disease, they're filthy. We can't have them in the schools. They're strangers. ... The local people whipped themselves into a mold of cruelty. Then they formed units, squads, and armed them -- armed them with clubs, with gas, with guns. We own the country. We can't let these Okies get out of hand."

Are these not the exact same fears we're hearing about today? Oh, these thieving, raping immigrants, some say, suggesting mass roundups.

It goes to show how quickly desperation and discomfort turn into hatred. That's not racism so much as it is fear, which I'd argue is at play in this most recent spate of anti-immigrant rhetoric.



The question is, when is the Republican party going to start being about hope instead of fear?