Written by 
“America is for Americans and Americans only,” Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, proclaimed at the Trump-Vance rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden last night.
This assertion is likely news to the tens of millions of Irish people who have emigrated to the United States for well over a century, as well as their generations of Irish American descendants.
Notably, Miller’s assertion bears an uncomfortable similarity with “Germany for the Germans – foreigners out,” which, according to The Guardian, is a phrase originating in the 19th century and used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
(It also comes about a week after John Kelly, Trump’s former Chief of Staff, confirmed to the New York Times previous reports that he had heard Trump speak favorably of Hitler on more than one occasion.)
Miller’s echoes of Nazi rhetoric are being overshadowed in the headlines on Monday by podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe’s denigration of Latinos.
“These Latinos, they love making babies too,” Hinchcliffe told a packed-out MSG. “Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.”
He continued: “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
Hinchcliffe’s bizarre claims backfired, infuriating Puerto Ricans and prompting endorsements for Kamala Harris from major Latino entertainers including Ricky Martin, Bad Bunny, and Luis Fonsi.
As the Associated Press notes, Hinchcliffe’s set also included lewd and racist comments about Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election.
It was not too long ago that Irish immigrants were subjected to the same type of racist treatment. Lest we forget “No Irish Need Apply” and “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish.”
Responding to Sunday’s rally, Ted Smyth, a member of the Irish Americans for Harris committee, told IrishCentral on Monday: “Immigrants have built and continue to build America to be the strongest economy in the world.
“They have fought and died to protect democracy at home and abroad since the Civil War.
“If Puerto Rico can be called ‘a floating island of garbage,’ how long before the land of our ancestors, Ireland, is similarly labeled by extreme Trumpists who hate global trade?”
Indeed, Irish Americans must ask themselves how they can reconcile their own history of disparagement with the Trump campaign’s denigration of foreigners and claims that “America is for Americans only.”