Interview: Adam Serwer On White Nationalism's American Roots

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🗓️ 16 April 2019

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

The Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer explains how racism and white nationalism were deeply embedded in America not just from its founding, but throughout the 20th century — and how one man corralled those ideas into a grand pseudo-scientific theory that influenced U.S. immigration policy and eventually Nazi Germany. His article about that man, Madison Grant, is called "White Nationalism's Deep American Roots." Email the show at [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Since the start of his campaign for president, Donald Trump's signature issue has been immigration.
0:11.1	From his comments about immigrants being rapists and murderers to the Muslim travel ban
0:15.9	to his recent threats to shut down the US-Mexico border, immigration has dominated the Trump
0:21.5	presidency.
0:22.5	There are three Trump aides who are thought to be the biggest influence on Trump when
0:26.6	it comes to immigration.
0:28.2	Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.
0:31.8	Of those three, only Miller, who actually began as a congressional aide to sessions, is
0:37.2	left.
0:38.4	But even in their absence, Bannon and Sessions influence is still felt.
0:43.3	And when you look at what influenced those men on immigration, the story gets really
0:47.2	interesting.
0:48.2	The Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is now joining the Senator Sessions.
0:52.2	Thank you so much for taking time away from the family and night to join us.
0:55.3	Thank you, Steve.
0:56.3	Senator Sessions, there's this interview from back in 2015.
1:00.6	Steve Bannon's interviewing Jeff Sessions for his radio show, and they're talking about
1:04.7	immigration.
1:05.8	And Sessions praises this immigration bill from 1924.
1:09.6	The president and Congress changed the policy, and it slowed down immigration significantly.
1:16.8	When he says there were just too many people coming in.
1:19.8	And we're on a path now to search for or past what the situation was in 1924.
	...

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