‘Trump's anti-immigrant racism not confined to US’

US Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump's anti-immigrant racism is a global phenomenon, it is not merely confined to the United States, an American analyst says.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday dismissed the possibility of Trump being elected president, saying Americans are too "sensible" to elect him. He added that the American electorate will never pick him because "they recognize that being president is a serious job.”

“Trump is an extreme version of how America views itself,” political commentator Daniel Patrick Welch told Press TV on Wednesday. “Let’s be honest, Americans are some of the most dumbed-down and racist persons on the face of the Earth.”

Welch said the reason Trump will fail to attract enough votes in the upcoming elections is that his racist following is not large enough, but still this does not mean that Americans are “sensible.” Trump "is too extreme and too racist."

Welch attributed Trump’s plans to deport all illegal immigrants from the US to white supremacy, which can be seen in the way colored people are treated in America and even Europe.

“The crimes, the fabrication and exaggerating and the sensationalization of immigrant crime is deeply deeply symptomatic of a fundamentally-held racism that gives rise to all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories,” he said.

Trump says he would deport 11 million undocumented workers from the United States and would establish a "deportation force" for this purpose.

He has also promised to expel undocumented immigrants and build a wall on the US-Mexico border. In addition, he has proposed repealing the constitutional right to citizenship of anyone born on US soil.

“It is an openly fascist way of thought to say that Mexicans are stealing our jobs, and black people are scary and they are here to take our women and to take our stuff,” Welch said.

“When people talk about Trump can’t be elected, I think that is true that he is too extreme and too racist, but you have to back up and look all the overlap between what is going on all around the world,” he continued.

The analyst said that although a significant sector of society favors Trump’s racist views, there is also a significant sector who reject his ideas.

‘Racism not confined to US’

Welch attributed Trump’s plans to deport all illegal immigrants from the US to white supremacy, which can be seen in the way immigrants and people of color are treated in America as well as Europe.

Expanding on the common link between anti-immigrant racism in the US and Europe, the analyst cited how demonizing migrants has become mainstream across Europe, pointing out that there is a continuum in such violence against people of color from police killings in the US to the dehumanizing of peoples of the global south worldwide.

He said that “the whole reason that I am interested in geopolitics and in the struggle in general, and many people like me in pushing back against imperialism, is that we see the overlap: it's a seamless connection between our black and brown children being shot by police at home to the massive incarceration to the demonization of immigrants here as well as in Europe.”

“The exact same thing is happening. The fabrication and exaggeration and sensationalization of 'immigrant crime' is deeply, deeply symptomatic of a fundamentally held racism that gives rise to all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories even though people won't admit that it's basically a racist thing," he stated.

What distinguishes reaction in the US versus Europe, Welch said, is that people espousing Trump's views are seen as fitting into a longstanding racist pattern.

"We see it from the United States -- the difference is that it is clearly and exclusively reserved for the right wing; it is an openly fascist way of thought to say that Mexicans are taking our jobs, or that black men are scary and they're here to take our women and our stuff. It's an obvious racist and fascist road to go down,” he noted.

"In the European sphere there is an attempt to cover that up by throwing in a lot of other variables when, in my estimation it amounts to exactly the same thing. I can't see why it should be different in Europe than it is in the United States: when someone says my brother and my son are scary, and they're here to rape white women, whatever cover they use, whatever theory they come up with, I think it is offensive and racist in the extreme. And just as over here, I wouldn't engage anyone--wouldn't talk to anyone who exhibits that kind of view, or are the ideological cousins of those people, I would reject it as a matter of course," he stated. 

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