http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/american-nativism-the-newest-surge-xenophobia-14428?page=show

American Nativism and the Newest Surge in Xenophobia

Paul R. Pillar

November 23, 2015
A couple of days ago President Obama made an appropriate refinement to how he describes the discriminatory and xenophobic tendencies that have become all too obvious in debate and posturing in the United States on issues related to Syria, ISIS, the Paris attacks, and refugees. A week earlier at a press conference in Turkey, in expressing dismay at how “those who have taken on leadership” in the party of George W. Bush ignore how Mr. Bush had made clear that counterterrorism was not a war on Islam, Mr. Obama said, “That's not who we are.” This past weekend, in remarks in Malaysia, the president said that some of the excuses being made for Americans to reject Syrian refugees are “not representative of the best of who we are.” Inclusion of the qualifier the best is important. Although American history has featured the concept of the melting pot and the idea of a new people being created and enriched by the inclusion of diverse other peoples without regard to ethnicity or religion, the United States also has had an ignoble strain of bias and nativism.http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/american-nativism-the-newest-surge-xenophobia-14428?page=show