In an effort to delude Americans they call their product conservatism. but it is a contaminated conservatism that would conserve nothing. but would destroy and devour basic democratic institutions. Curiously America has. always been fertile soil for rightwing radicalism. Side by side with our democratic traditions has run a persistent mistrust of democratic practice. More than 100 years ago the American Party. better known as the KnowNothing Party. pricked the vulnerable nerve of antiforeign sentiment. On an antiCatholic. antiimmigrant platform. the KnowNothings elected Senators and Representatives in Congress and controlled State governments for several years. Their presidential candidate in 1856. former President Millard Fillmore. captured onefifth of the popular vote. The influence of early American rightist hatemongers has remained in robust good health for a century.
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antiimmigrant