IT SEEMS THAT TRUMP IS TRYING TO CREATE THE 21st CENTURY VERSION OF THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY

As time goes by it does seem that history always repeats itself.

In response to the overwhelming flood of Catholics immigrating into this country in the 1840’s emerged an anti-Irish-and anti-Catholic political party known as the Know-Nothing Party.

The Know-Nothings were named not for their ignorance but for their response when questioned about this growing party, they responded by saying “I know nothing.”

It was a party formed by politicians upset about their own parties’ views. Very much like today’s Tea Party.
One of its founders was New York Congressman Tom Whitney. He personally introduced legislation that was Anti-Catholic. His bill ultimately failed. The Know-Nothings were not just after the Irish and Catholics but had them at the top of their list of hatred.

In 1798 Congress passed the ‘Alien and Sedition Acts’ which made it a Federal crime to take part in any type of “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” about the federal government and authorized the President to deport any immigrant he deemed dangerous. This was the first law that dealt with the fear of the Irish-Catholic.

In 1843 a Know-Nothing candidate openly stated that “most of the Irish are as ignorant as children seven years old.” He also asked “who is it that commits most of the robberies, and thefts and murders in this city and country?” A different speaker stated that “these Irish bog-trotters must be sent back to their native obscurity.”

It wasn’t until the civil war that a lot of the hatred for the Irish-Catholics took a back seat to the hatred for free black slaves, and that the Irish helped fight in that war.

Now look at this Presidential election, does anything seem familiar? You can take out the words Irish and Catholic and replace them with Mexican and Muslim and we’re back in the 1800’s.

Many politicians over the years have won elections by scaring the American public.

It seems that we can always hate or fear someone or some ideology. We can go back to the Salem witch trials, with all the fears of sorcery and deaths.

We can look at the original native people of this land, the Indians. What we put those poor people through. We killed them, moved them, and took over their sacred land.

How about the Jews, African-Americans, Italians, Chinese, and the Japanese? They were all hated by politicians who benefitted from the fear they caused.

And what about the hippies? All they wanted to spread was peace and love. They were labeled un- American. Maybe they were un- American. As Americans we do love to fight, it looks like Trump is just taking a page out of our history to get elected this election. Can you blame him? This history of hatred has worked for a lot of Politicians in the past.

We as a society need to show Trump that this type of politics does not work anymore. And there is only one way to show him: at the ballot box.

Good, honest Americans must not fall for Trump’s Know-Nothing Politics.