The conscience of the people demands that the Indians within our boundaries shall be fairly and honestly treated as wards of the Government and their education and civilization promoted with a view to their ultimate citizenship, and that polygamy in the Territories, destructive of the family relation and offensive to the moral sense of the civilized world, shall be repressed.
The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization.--Grover Cleveland Inaugural Address, March 4, 1885.
It is comforting to think that President Trump's racialized xenophobia is an aberration; that in a democracy the cosmopolitan embrace of brotherhood (say, in the French Revolution) is always the more tempting strain; that it briefly interrupts the arc and march of (recall) historical American progress toward racial harmony. It is, perhaps, more tempting to view him as an especially lucky or skilled demagogue, who defeated Madison's design to prevent the rise of such a character because of innovation in the media and the development of open primaries (which reduce party elite control over the electoral process). What really needs explaining on this account is how a mixed, wealthy, and educated society can elect such a character after an extended period in which elections were won in the moderate center (vindicating Downs' voter theory (recall)).
Regular readers will not be surprised I think of Trump as a regression to the mean. Xenophobia and demagogy are permanent possibilities in liberal democracies. These have no special tendency toward acting morally abroad or toward their own minorities. (That's compatible with lots of other political systems being especially atrocious.) Even belated acknowledgments of past wrongs are unlikely to lead to genuine compensation in democracies. As Spooner puts it "Do not imagine that the Parliaments and Courts of oppressors will ever right the wrongs of the oppressed." (That may be too categorical.)
I decided to take a look at Cleveland's inaugural address because I had been reading Lysander Spooner's criticism of it. To the best of my knowledge Cleveland has a decent reputation among historians and he is not remembered, especially, for his fiery rhetoric or immoral behaviour toward minorities and foreigners. Even so, in his Inaugural Cleveland appeals to a shared sense of cultural superiority toward native Americans, immigrants, and Mormons. (Strikingly the Inaugural is silent about the former slaves and Reconstruction.)* It is my sense that the "servile class...with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization" is a dog-whistle about Chinese immigrants.
Crucially, this sense of cultural superiority is cashed out by Cleveland in moral terms (which is why the Mormons can be included in the list). The de facto military and economic power of the United States is understood in terms of superior moral civilization that risks being polluted by others. It expresses and understands itself paternalistically toward the native Americans, which are forced to assimilate. Even the nakedly economic argument against immigration is primarily justified by fears over moral contamination. (Spooner attacks Cleveland not on this sense of superiority but with the suggestion that the economic gains of immigration restriction are captured by employers not workers.)
Cleveland was not an experienced politician when he became President. (In this he reflects the last two Presidents.) And he is distinct from American populism. (But he does echo Jacksonian strains.) I mention him not because I think his words are especially distinct from what one would expect, but rather because I suspect they are really a normal attitude in democracies. The previous sentence is not an argument for expert-rule or multi-national empire (or sortition, etc.). To say "that's normal" is not intended to excuse it. (To say that the business cycle is normal is not to approve of recessions.) But rather to help us see that at no time one can be confident that voters will not be seduced by awful ideas dressed up as civilizational or moral talk. ** What needs genuine explanation is when this does not occur.
*It is probably alluded to when he rejects "sectional prejudice and distrust."
**If this sounds pessimistic about "the people"; I note that this pessimism is shared by all who embrace bill of rights, constitutional protections, judicial review, human rights, etc.
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