Throughout the presidential campaign, Imagine 2050 and others have reported on candidates’ troubling embrace of representatives from the organized anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim movements.
President-elect Donald Trump’s victory has established that these dangerous individuals will no longer merely influence campaign positions—they’ll be influencing official White House policy goals.
Today, the Center for New Community is releasing a new resource detailing members of the incoming Trump administration and their ties to organized nativism: Nativists at the White House.
This resource shows many of President-elect Trump’s advisors and selected cabinet officials boast explicit ties to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups. For years, these groups have sought to undermine communities of color by influencing both lawmakers and public discourse with misinformation and bigoted conspiracies. This new resource only reaffirms the grave threats a Trump presidency poses to these vulnerable communities.
Nativists at the White House
As this new resource shows, the President-elect has sought counsel from nearly 20 individuals supporting extremist organizations and policy positions. Among others, individuals featured include:
- The architect of Arizona’s disastrous and draconian anti-immigrant bill SB 1070;
- Leading promulgators of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories;
- Far-right media personalities; and
- Two members of anti-Muslim grassroots group ACT for America’s board of advisors.
These are people who have proudly attacked Islam as a “cancer” and expressed concern that Latino immigrants could “overwhelm” whites and commit “ethnic cleansing.” Many of the people featured in this resource are also regular speakers at events organized by nativist organizations.
While some of the individuals listed in this resource must be approved by Congress, other appointees are not subject to such oversight. Either way, the influence of organized nativism on the next administration cannot be denied.
While declaring victory, the President-elect expressed a desire to “work together and unify our great country.” However, the political adage “personnel is policy” suggests that call for unity was just another in the long list of blatant falsehoods and obfuscations espoused by the President-elect on the campaign trail. The next president campaigned on policies of division and fear. Now he’s surrounding himself with people who can implement those policies.
Understanding the extremist connections and motivations of those at the highest seats of power is a necessary step in opposing the implementation of harmful policies that divide, rather than unite us. We hope this resource aids in this understanding.