The Know Nothings Ride Again!

US Person previously referred to the Tea Partiers as modern day "Know Nothings".{15.6.10}  The Know Nothings were a splinter party of the early 1850s that campaigned based on white Protestant reaction to the first non Anglo-saxon immigrant wave to hit the shores of the homeland.  The Know Nothings rose to prominence in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia.  At its peak of influence two thirds of Massachusetts voters voted for Know Nothing candidates.  But the party's power evaporated when the Know Nothing presidential candidate lost the election of 1854. Allegedly, the party name came from the instructions members received for responding to inquiries about their activities.

To understand just how marginalized the Republican Party is becoming, and morphing into a party of know nothings or worse, one only has to look at their endorsement of ending the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of citizenship to any person born on US soil.  Previously this was a radical position only favored by right-wing fringe groups.  But now leaders of the GOP are calling for an examination of the constitutional provision.  Tea party favorite Rand Paul (R) advocates ending the citizenship at birth provision as have other legislators.   Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called the constitutional provision "a mistake".  The only mistake is one the GOP is making. Contrary to their closet supremacist fantasies, the United States was built and settled by immigrants of many races. It was never a white man's country club. When the 14th Amendment was being debated, Congressmen clearly understood that it would apply to the children of immigrants not just freed slaves , and the natural born citizenship provision basically followed the English common law principle of jus soil. Their pandering to white racist reaction is truly "repugnant".  What's next: killing "anchor babies"?