Nationalism

Our president recently admitted to being a nationalist on national television and quite frankly, that scared the living hell out of me. To hear the leader of a supposedly civilized western nation openly and proudly declare that he adheres to such a dangerous and toxic ideology rattled me to my very core. I think we need to go into depth on how truly horrifying that is. Let's look at some famous nationalists throughout history, we have; Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-sung, and, of course, Adolf Hitler, just to name a few. Take a moment to think about that. Those are just a handful of the abominable human beings that the supposed "leader of the free world" has essentially sided with as his philosophical kin. Anyone with even a remedial knowledge of history knows that after blind nationalism comes inevitable tragedies in the form of crimes against humanity. When I heard Trump declare himself a nationalist, I immediately thought of the best and worst case scenarios of that declaration; best case scenario, Trump is just an idiot who doesn't know the horrendous weight that comes with the label of nationalist, and the worst case scenario is that he is fully aware of what he is saying, doesn't care, and aspires to go down the path that so many tyrants have shamefully walked, which is absolutely terrifying. I love my country, and I believe that the United States has, for the most part, been on the right side of history. I learned in school that we were the good guys and because of that, I never imagined I would hear a president talk like a wannabee dictator. It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Trump, but his sudden embrace of nationalism has disturbed me more than anything else he's said, crazy as that may be. It deeply worries me and fills me with fear, not only of the president, but of what he's doing to my country's image which I'm honestly not sure if we'll be able to recover from. Throughout history, nationalism is and always has been the precursor to tragedy, and if Trump's recent embrace of it doesn't scare you into voting, I don't know what will. No leader of a western democratic nation should ever talk like that. It's just not who we are or what we stand for, rather it is counterintuitive to everything that the west is supposed to embody. I'd expect talk like that out of a dictator of some third world country, not the president of the United States. Nationalism is toxic, plain and simple. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you. Charles DeGaulle said it best in his quote "Patriotism is the love of your countrymen, nationalism is the hatred of everyone else."