Donald Trump calls himself a nationalist, but he’s only two generations removed from Germany. He supports closed borders and screams about building walls to keep people out of the U.S. Lucky for him, that’s a relatively new attitude in America. For hundreds of years, Europeans flooded the U.S. in droves.
Now, some of the descendants of those immigrants wave flags and scream that no one else should be allowed to get into the country. Meanwhile, Trump is moving forward with his “America first” policy that says to heck with the rest of the world, it’s all about the U.S.
At the same time, the U.S. relies almost solely on China to manufacture iPhones, Japan to make TV sets and electronics, Germany to make cars and Saudi Arabia to provide oil. Nationalism? Hardly.
In fact, the man who has been leading the charge on the cause for nationalism, Donald Trump, isn’t true to his own so-called deeply-held ideal. Donald Trump owns a Rolls Royce from Britain, a Lamborghini Diablo from Italy and a Mercedes-Benz from Germany.
The car collection that Donald Trump showed off to Business Insider in 2016 contained only two American-made vehicles, in fact, a gold motorcycle from Orange County Choppers and a Cadillac.
If you’re like 95 percent of the people in the U.S., your family ultimately came here from somewhere else. And your home is very likely to be filled with non-American products.
There isn’t even a distinct tradition of United States food. This is a country that has no real identity — it’s a mixture of the identities of other countries all around the world. Hamburgers, apple pie and hot dogs are all German foods first. French fries are Belgium.
There is no nationalism in the United States. The national identity of the country is that it’s a nation of immigrants. The culture is a grab bag of South American, Mexican, European, Asian and African music, food and language.
And so are the people. American people are made up of bits and pieces of all the other countries around the world, in a way that’s distinctly American. Coming to this country from someplace else is distinctly American.
What is America’s national identity?
We still have the power to decide that. We still have the option of disagreeing with Donald Trump. We still have the option of being a country that knows what it is…and America is a place for everyone to find their identity.
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