He started with President Barack Obama’s birth certificate. He’s kept at it with migrants and non-whites in general, and his latest is Cherokee DNA. He’s campaigning for what the Nazis called racial purity, and so far, nobody’s called him on it.

Back in 1934, when Hitler’s lawyers were designing the Nuremberg racial laws aimed at eliminating Jews and other undesirables, they visited the U.S. to study racial segregation at work. A historian, James Whitman, has recently published “Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law” (Princeton University Press).

We’re still struggling with the heritage of slavery, and some say today’s immigrants are a threat. We ought to denounce and dismiss the trouble-makers who are keeping the old racial wounds open. Instead of ignoring them, too many of us are still cheering them on.

Charles Ferguson

Vassalboro


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