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Lincoln’s ‘Know-Nothing’ strategy a lesson for Trump (D'Souza)

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Lincoln’s ‘Know-Nothing’ strategy a lesson for Trump

By Dinesh D'Souza, opinion contributor — 08/11/18 09:00 AM EDT 

White nationalist bigots and crazies are convening in Washington this weekend to mark the one-year anniversary of the Charlottesville, Virginia, riot that led to the deaths of a woman and two police officers — and, once again, President Trump will be confronted with the thorny issue of how to deal with them. His challenge seems unprecedented, yet the issue of dealing with a bigoted group that professes to be in one’s camp was faced by America’s first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.

The Native American Party, later renamed the American Party, was a powerful political organization in the 1850s. It was colloquially known as the “Know-Nothings,” a term self-appropriated from critics who described its members as ignorant buffoons. 

The Know-Nothings were both a reform movement and a bigoted anti-immigrant movement. Know-Nothings supported antislavery, missionary projects at home and abroad, charitable aid for orphans and the poor, and temperance. They despised new immigrants, especially the Irish, whom they reviled as Catholic “papists” and drunks. The Know-Nothing platform called for restricting slavery in new states, alcohol prohibition, a halt to immigration and a law banning immigrants from benefiting from the Homestead Act that made cheap land available to settlers moving west.

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http://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/401104-lincolns-know-nothing-strategy-a-lesson-for-trump

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