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In an America, people react with shock when a president publishes vile racist tweets against women legislators. In the other America, people do not say anything.
In one America, people are protesting after a president claimed that African, Haitian and Salvadoran immigrants came from "difficult" countries. In the other America, people nod their heads.
In an America, people become outraged when government officials take migrant children into their mothers' arms and hold them for weeks in filthy conditions with no repercussions. In the other America, people remain silent.
And in one America, people condemn a president for portraying protesters alongside neo-Nazis as "very good people". In the other America, people shrug their shoulders.
Trump's tweets demonstrate a deep understanding of America
It has been said that Trump's comments on immigrants reveal that he really does not understand America. Some said that the United States was based on the crucible concept. Immigrants strengthen the country.
But Trump's recent tweets could show that he understands America better than his critics realize.
These two Americas have long coexisted.
One is the country represented by the Statue of Liberty and its invitation to poor and tired immigrants "aspiring to breathe freely".
The other is the one that virtually wiped out Native Americans, enslaved Africans, expelled Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century and placed Americans of Japanese descent in concentration camps.
Since the rarefied roost of the White House, Trump's racist tweets are inscribed in the identity of this other America.
And here's what's so scary about it: It's no exaggeration to say that when a leader uses the kind of language Trump uses against minorities, it can increase the risk of violence.
I remember what Mark Naison, a historian from Fordham University, said after the Charlottesville violence in 2017 when he spoke of Trump's racial rhetoric.
He says that most Americans do not realize how dangerous it is for a leader to talk about his fellow citizens as if they were the enemy. But some people from other countries know it.
Naison is reminded of a conversation he had with Trump supporters.
"I told these guys," You can not control that. You play with fire, "said Naison. "Opening a violent community war is scary, you can not control it, look what happened in the Balkans, Northern Ireland and Israel."
The United States must become one or the other thing
Historical badogies, of course, are delicate.
I have heard commentators say that we were on the brink of a second civil war. It makes fun of the carnage of this war, where at least 600,000 Americans were killed.
This comment evoked another era that reminds me of this: the decades preceding the civil war.
Then, as now, we were divided into two different countries. A political compromise was impossible on another subject that concerned the American identity – slavery. Congressional legislators have worn guns on the floor of the House and Senate.
The imminent civil war was described as an "irrepressible conflict" – the nation would become either a slave nation or a free labor country. There was no ground for understanding.
This period also saw the rise of the country's first anti-immigration party. They were called the "American party", otherwise known as "know-nothing". They accused Irish and German immigrants of being behind rising crime and poverty rates and riots broke out all over America in the 1840s and 50s.
Trump's tweets show that we are now in the midst of another "irrepressible conflict". We can not always be a country that prides itself on welcoming immigrants and religious diversity while being a country that puts immigrant children in cages and shrugs when our president makes racist statements.
To paraphrase another president – Abraham Lincoln – we will eventually become "all or part of things".
The indignation over Trump's tweets will eventually fade. But the choice that his racial rhetoric offers to America will be with us for years to come.
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