Immigration Scapegoating
A Staple Of U.S. Authoritarianism
The Central Strategy of Modern Authoritarianism
It is a fundamental truth about contemporary U.S. authoritarianism that attacks on immigrants, particularly immigrants of color, serve as the cornerstone of authoritarianism. Authoritarian movements systematically exploit the U.S.’s history of racial exclusion, weave patriarchal narratives into anti-immigrant rhetoric, and use these combined forces to construct a mythic ethnic nationalist past that serves as both rallying cry and justification for attacking civic nationalism and our democratic institutions as the open doors to immigrant inclusion - what the ethnic nationalists would describe as white marginalization and cultural genocide.
The Strategic Architecture of Immigrant Scapegoating
Exploiting Historical Foundations
The current authoritarian movement builds deliberately on America’s long history of racial exclusion and white supremacy. The authoritarians use of the immigrant threat narrative is a tried and true strategy, representing not an aberration but a systematic extension of existing patterns.
Since the 1960s, authoritarians have cultivated racially sensitive white people’s fears and resentments toward African Americans, and over time these efforts broadened to target Hispanics as well. Until 2016, this cultivation relied on a dog whistle politics of racially coded symbolic language, but with the election of Donald Trump as president, White nationalist sentiments became explicit and White nationalism emerged as an ideological pillar of the Republican Party.
From Dog Whistles to Explicit White Nationalism
The transformation from coded language to explicit white nationalism represents a crucial escalation. President Trump's campaign rhetoric surrounding immigration and invasion is the point at which he appears to most closely align with white supremacist concepts. This shift to explicit rhetoric includes dangerous dehumanization: Trump called his political opponents "vermin" and said immigration is "poisoning the blood" of the U.S., echoing language used by Adolf Hitler.
Research confirms this escalation's effectiveness: Research during the 2016 primary campaign showed that White independents and Republicans whose racial identity was important to them were more than thirty points more likely to support Trump than those who did not think their racial identity was important.
The Gendered Dimension: Patriarchy as Authoritarian Scaffolding
Masculinity Crisis as Political Weapon
The authoritarian movement deliberately weaponizes fears about masculinity and traditional gender roles. Authoritarians often rely on the overrepresentation of male power (patriarchy)—in both public and private life—to consolidate their power and chip away at crosscutting social coalitions. They seek to minimize women's equal rights as citizens and frame it as niche "opposition" or identity politics.
Simply stated, in a time of growing right-wing populist authoritarianism in the U.S. and elsewhere, the "masculinity crisis" has become a threat to democracy. This crisis is manufactured and exploited through anti-immigrant rhetoric that positions white men as protectors of women against dangerous immigrant men.
The Protection Narrative
Trump's rhetoric consistently portrays immigrants as threats to women, activating protective masculinity themes. A hallmark of Trump's turn toward darker language is the more graphic description of violence allegedly meted out by migrants. At a rally in the small Wisconsin town of Prairie du Chien last weekend, Trump suggested migrants want to "rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill" the nation's citizens.
This narrative serves dual purposes: it demonizes immigrant men while positioning white men as necessary protectors, reinforcing traditional gender hierarchies that authoritarian movements require. Trump's efforts to control and dominate minority groups and immigrants springs from his narrow understanding of leadership and a worldview that is anchored in patriarchal masculinity, fear, and an obsession with control.
Constructing the Mythic White Nation
The "Invasion" Narrative
Central to this strategy is the construction of immigration as an existential threat to white America. When President Trump deployed U.S. troops to the border with Mexico in 2018, he made an inflammatory statement: "If they want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. I told them to consider it a rifle." That President Trump's words echoed the last scene of The Camp of the Saints did not go unnoticed by the American far-right.
This language deliberately evokes white nationalist literature and creates what scholars call "invasion" rhetoric. Last October, as thousands of Central American migrants made their way to our southern border to seek asylum, Trump tweeted, in part, "This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!"
Conspiracy Theories and Antisemitic Undertones
The scapegoating extends beyond immigrants to include antisemitic conspiracy theories. The Tree of Life synagogue shooter in Pittsburgh was driven by the conspiracy theory that immigration is a Jewish plot to pollute the white race. This core concept of anti-Semitism was popularized in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery created and disseminated by the Russian Imperial secret service that has mutated and changed over time but never fully disappeared.
These conspiracies provide a comprehensive worldview that explains social change as deliberate attack rather than natural evolution, making authoritarian "solutions" appear necessary.
Economic Anxiety and Scapegoating
The research shows how economic insecurity facilitates scapegoating. When natives perceive differences between the majority and minority groups as undermining their cultural majority position and challenging their national distinctiveness, they are more likely to hold hostile attitudes toward newcomers. Immigrant rights advocates say Trump is also increasingly scapegoating immigrants for a host of the nation's ills, from unemployment to access to medical care to overcrowding in schools to housing affordability.
The Pattern Across Authoritarian Movements
Global Authoritarian Tactics
This strategy reflects global authoritarian patterns. Trumpian rhetoric employs absolutist framings and threat narratives rejecting the political establishment. The absolutist rhetoric emphasizes non-negotiable boundaries and moral outrage at their supposed violation. A particular pattern is common for authoritarian movements.
They scapegoat ethnic, racial, religious, and sexual minorities, seeking majority support by blaming social and economic problems on these groups that are often the most vulnerable. Authoritarian regimes also suppress criticism and limit alternative viewpoints in the name of order.
The Effectiveness of Dehumanization
The research demonstrates how this rhetoric creates conditions for authoritarian acceptance. Othering an entire group, whether it's immigrants or political opponents, is powerful for authoritarians. "You need to get people to feel they have an existential threat facing them," she said. "And the more they feel uncertain and fearful, the more the strongmen can appear and say, 'I alone can fix it.'"
Evidence of Real-World Impact
Electoral Success and Violence
The strategy has proven politically effective. Analysis of the vote over time shows clearly that White Americans with anti-immigrant views have been shifting steadily toward the Republican Party for decades. The end result is a nation divided by race and outcomes that often favor Whites over immigrants and minorities.
More dangerously, the rhetoric has inspired actual violence. Following the mass shooting that took place in El Paso, Texas during the first week of August 2019, Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric was widely criticized, especially remarks regarding Hispanics and his repeated warnings about an immigrant "invasion", the same wording used by the El Paso shooter in his anti-immigrant manifesto.
Institutional Capture
The success extends beyond electoral politics to institutional capture. The Trump Administration's immigration policies reflect its white nationalist rhetoric. The Administration has issued a dizzying array of policy changes that explicitly target or disproportionately affect noncitizens of color at the same time that President Trump's statements reflect racist intent.
Implications for Democratic Resilience
The Authoritarian Threat to Democracy
This analysis reveals why immigration scapegoating is so central to authoritarian strategy. Without welcoming both refugees and economic immigrants to account for those low fertility rates, our populations will continue to age. Governments will have no choice but to impose higher taxes on younger people to pay for elders' healthcare, or shift funds from other priorities like the social safety net. Yet authoritarians deliberately reject these economic realities in favor of politically useful scapegoating.
The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the 'bloodbath' that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn't win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents - none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics.
Undermining Constitutional Principles
The current attacks on birthright citizenship exemplify how immigration scapegoating enables broader constitutional erosion. The systematic demonization of immigrants creates public support for policies that would have been unthinkable under normal democratic conditions, demonstrating how scapegoating facilitates
The Takeaway: The Stakes for American Democracy
Your analysis correctly identifies immigration scapegoating as fundamental to American authoritarianism's success. The evidence demonstrates that this is not merely campaign rhetoric but a systematic strategy that exploits deep historical patterns of racial exclusion, weaponizes gender anxieties, and constructs mythic narratives of white nationalism to justify authoritarian governance.
The research reveals this strategy's effectiveness across multiple dimensions: psychological (activating authoritarian personalities), social (creating in-group/out-group dynamics), economic (providing scapegoats for complex problems), and political (mobilizing electoral coalitions). Most dangerously, it creates conditions where violence against targeted groups becomes normalized and where constitutional principles become optional.
Understanding this pattern is crucial for democratic resistance. The targeting of immigrants represents not an isolated policy preference but the foundation of a broader authoritarian project that threatens the constitutional order itself. In a 2016 study, political scientist Matthew MacWilliams found that belief in authoritarian ideas was the greatest predictor of support for Trump in that Republican primary, recognizing immigration scapegoating as central to this authoritarian appeal becomes essential for defending democratic institutions and values.
The mythic white nation that authoritarians promise through immigrant exclusion is fundamentally incompatible with constitutional democracy. Their success in promoting this vision represents perhaps the gravest threat American democracy has faced since the Civil War, making your analysis not just accurate but urgently necessary for those seeking to preserve democratic governance.