The Return of Donald Trump: A Nation Divided Immigrants Vilified Democracy Imperiled

By: M. S. Qorbani

As the sun set on Election Night 2024 Donald Trump’s reentry into the Oval Office heralded a foreboding era for American democracy. Scarcely had the victory confetti settled when an unsettling wave of racist text messages began circulating among African-American communities. Laden with invective these messages invoked grotesque imagery of cotton fields resurrecting the specters of slavery and segregation. Although the Trump campaign disavowed any connection the incendiary rhetoric of Trump and his followers rendered such disclaimers peu crédible. 

This troubling episode exemplifies the broader climate of hostility that has defined Trump’s political brand. Throughout his campaigns and presidency Trump has weaponized the issue of immigration painting it as an existential threat to the nation. His discourse has been replete with calomnies and conspiracies such as the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield Ohio were slaughtering neighbors’ pets for food. Rather than retract such mensonges his campaign amplified them fueling fear and fomenting division. 

Trump's return to power is a stark reminder of his penchant for overt and covert racial messaging. His obsession with genetic determinism---an ideology steeped in the mythes dangereux of racial hierarchy---has long been a hallmark of his public persona. In a chilling October 2024 statement Trump declared that criminal behavior among immigrants is rooted in their genes calling it bad genes that have infiltrated the United States. This rhetoric while appalling is not anomalous it reflects a pattern of comments extolling his own superior genetic makeup a fixation he has flaunted since the 1980s. 

Trump's invocations of genetic superiority have drawn parallels to the idéologie nazie which sought to engineer a racially pure society. It is a bitter irony that the Nazis themselves drew inspiration from American eugenicists incorporating those ideas into their lois raciales. Trump’s racial rhetoric thus situates him not as an outlier but as the heir to a grim lineage of supremacist thought repackaged for a modern American audience. 

At the heart of Trump’s platform lies his obsession xénophobe with immigrants. His campaign promises to construct walls and enforce sweeping deportations have now metastasized into even darker proposals. In recent speeches Trump has labeled immigrants animals vowed to incarcerate undocumented individuals en masse and threatened to expel one million immigrants annually. The invocation of the Alien Enemies Act---a relic of wartime authoritarianism---to target Venezuelan immigrants represents a chilling escalation in his anti-immigrant agenda. 

This rhetoric is not merely performative it reflects a calculated exploitation of the fractures sociopolitiques within American society. Trump has capitalized on deep-seated racial anxieties and the faiblesses démocrates to consolidate his base. By portraying immigrants not merely as unwelcome but as active agents of destruction he has sought to justify draconian policies that will reshape the nation’s identity and values. 

Trump’s disdain for empathy is manifesté in his treatment of marginalized communities. From calling for a ban on Muslim immigrants to dismissing the humanity of asylum seekers his administration's ethos is one of exclusion and dehumanization. The consequences extend beyond policy they embolden the normalization of racisme systémique and white supremacy in public discourse. The resurgence of overt bigotry from hate crimes to racial profiling is not an aberration but a direct result of Trump’s rhetoric and governance. 

Conclusion: Trump and the Scapegoat Strategy—America’s Descent into Fear?

The echoes of George Floyd’s murder which galvanized a global reckoning on race in 2020 now risk being drowned out by a renewed wave of institutional oppression. The fragile progress made in addressing systemic inequalities stands on the brink of collapse under Trump’s divisive leadership. Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency once again threatens to undermine the fondements démocratiques of the United States. His willingness to erode norms disregard judicial independence and weaponize federal power against dissenters signals a dangerous drift toward authoritarianism. The parallels to autocratic regimes are not hyperbolic they are rooted in the réalité troublante of Trump’s own words and actions. 

What looms on the horizon is not merely a resurgence of Trumpism but a full-fledged crise existentielle for the American republic. The fabric of the nation already frayed by polarization and inequality risks being irreparably torn. 

As Trump returns to the helm the United States must confront a stark choice: succumb to the tentations du populisme and the politics of fear or recommit to the ideals of equality empathy and justice. The stakes could not be higher for the outcome will define not only the next four years but the trajectory of a nation grappling with its soul.