Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen


Woodrow Wilson And Trump: Fanning the Flames of Hate

August 13, 2019

Trump is not the first. Author of many history books Adam Hochschild writes: “The last time we had anything similar from Washington was almost exactly 100 years ago and it, too, involved a flood of angry rhetoric and a fear of immigrant.” Unlike the bombastic Trump, Woodrow Wilson managed to always look dignified, tasking his subordinates with directly inflaming the public into anti-immigrant hatred and violence including lynchings. Foreigners were cast as The Other. The administration used taxpayer dollars to intentionally incite rage. Like the 45th, the 28th president also issued edicts which were terrifying. And as Hochschild explains, in both cases maintaining the power of the super rich was the real motive behind the war on immigrants.