The Return Of Know-Nothingism

An authentic grass-fire political movement threatens Democrats on all fronts. So as November's reckoning approaches, what does their president do? Why, whip up fear of foreigners in a throwback to the 1850s. Having rammed costly and unpopular measures through Congress by questionable means, Democrats are in big trouble come November. As their president's popularity tanks, the vast national Tea Party movement is mobilizing the public to vote them out, and America's private sector is at long last standing up for free markets. For Democrats, it's like the sun — a reality they cannot stare in the face. So instead we see the recrudescence of one of the oldest and worst traditions in American politics: the demonization of foreigners. Not since the days of the nativist Know-Nothing movement in the 1840s and 1850s has it been so egregious...