It’s almost Halloween and, this year, I have already been given a real fright. Former President Donald Trump recently suggested in an interview that the military could be deployed against “enemies within” the U.S. on Election Day.
Hearing these words sent a shiver down my spine. As a political scientist studying American politics and immigration, I was shocked but not surprised. I know that when leaders attack immigrants, citizens are next. Historically, these are citizens with the “wrong” ideas, sexuality, ethnicity or religion.
There are many tragic examples of this phenomenon across the globe, but in the U.S., a few that come to mind are the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Red Scare and Lavender Scares of the 1930s-1950s which cast suspected communists and LGBTQ+ workers out of universities, the government and the military, and the mass surveillance of Muslim Americans after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. In all of these cases, the U.S. government, including the U.S. military, wielded its immense power against minority populations—all of whom were also U.S. citizens.
All of these incidents were carried out in the name of national security. And the connection to anti-immigrant sentiment is intimate.
For example, the fencing that was used to confine Japanese U.S. citizens who had been stripped of their property and possessions into unsanitary desert camps, was literally reused to build the first permanent border fences at the U.S.-Mexico border. Also, underlying motivations for the Red and Lavender Scares or “McCarthyism” such as the House Un-American Activities Committee included unvarnished xenophobia, anti-intellectualism and anti-Semitism. After Sept. 11, federal immigration enforcement was moved under the purview of the newly created Department of Homeland Security, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau was created.
The incarceration of Japanese Americans is now considered to be one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history. Japanese American survivors of these events received reparations in 1988 under the Civil Liberties Act signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned and rebuked the 1944 Korematsu v. United States decision. Similarly, public opinion eventually turned on red-hunter in chief, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who called U.S. military leaders “mental midgets” and carried a copy of Mein Kampf, and he was formally censured by the government in 1954. Today, the term “McCarthyism” is used to describe censorship, extreme interrogation tactics and modern witch hunts.
But it is important to remember that at the time, Japanese Internment and the activities of McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee were legal and supported by public opinion. The harms faced by Muslim Americans after—and since—Sept. 11 are still unfolding. I believe that one day, history will recognize the government spying on citizens based solely on their religion as an injustice.
Today, political scientists around the world in my sub-field, political psychology, have found substantial evidence that citizens who hold anti-immigrant attitudes are also more likely to support authoritarian regimes. This relationship is intuitive since, again, xenophobic nationalistic attitudes often precede government crackdowns on citizens.
And more Americans would be willing to accept a definitionally authoritarian ruler than you might think. A 2024 Pew Research Survey found that around 32% of Americans expressed support for military rule or authoritarian leaders—leaders who make decisions without legislative or judicial interference.
Since the early days of Trump’s presidency, political scientists have sounded the alarm about his authoritarian tendencies. And, once again, the Trump team is running an explicitly anti-immigrant campaign. Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly warns that, if elected again, Trump would lead like a dictator noting, “he’s certainly an authoritarian”. Now, President Trump’s defenders’ only cover is that he does not really mean what he says.
When Trump lies, we are asked to believe him. And when he tells the truth, we are told to ignore him.
Let’s not repeat the ugly history of targeting immigrants and citizens and apologizing later. Now is the time to speak up and to vote. These precious rights should not be taken for granted.
