Many of the Americans who are warning us about the rising tide of a dangerous Christian nationalism are the same ones who delight in chiding supporters of Trump’s immigration enforcement on the basis of biblical principles. “Love thy neighbor,” they say to those who welcome the deportations, even as they act as though it would be a terrible thing if public policy were guided by Christian principles. “Care for the stranger within thy gates,” they implore, quoting the Old Testament, as though 40 million people who broke our laws by entering the nation are indistinguishable from a single lonesome traveler in need of a bed for the night.
Leave aside that these moralizers are cynically leveraging scripture from religious traditions that they deplore. The riots in Los Angeles have starkly defined the ridiculous premise that defines the resistance to deportation. No serious person disputes that existing law makes it a crime for a foreigner to enter the country without permission. No serious person disputes that millions of people are in the country illegally because they crossed the border without permission. No serious person disputes that the federal government rightfully has the power to enforce federal law.
This shows that the core of the “debate” on illegal immigration is the absurd contention that the law should not be enforced. This flies in the face of the purpose of laws (which are created to be enforced). But there are greater ironies. The people who insist that we don’t enforce the law were also the ones who smirked at us for years through a refrain of “No one is above the law!”
The L.A. riots have powerfully illustrated the glaring contradictions that define the opposition to Trump’s border agenda. But perhaps no image from the riots distills the contradictions of open borders ideology better than the one that shows a masked man riding a dirt bike around a burning car while waving a Mexican flag.
Many have commented on the madness inherent in the scene. This man — presumably a Mexican in the United States illegally — wears a mask to keep his identity private as he exploits and corrupts the American right to peaceful and public protest. He is the embodiment of the people the left insist are just coming here “in search of a better life.” But he still flies the flag of the place that he left, the place where his quality of life was presumably inferior. Yes, he waves the flag of the nation that he now insists he will not return to.
It’s important to consider what that flag represents. The display of the Mexican flag in Mexico means something different from the display of the Mexican flag in the United States. Obviously, immigrants flying the Mexican flag in America recognize that life is better here and that America is superior to Mexico. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here. And the Mexican flag doesn’t represent a “set of ideas or principles” in the way that the American flag does.
The truth is that flying the Mexican flag in the United States is essentially an expression of ethno-nationalism. It announces one’s affinity and allegiance to the Mexican people, not the nation-state that they abandoned. And make no mistake: This idea of the nation as a people is defined by ethnic concerns. It is no coincidence that Mexican-American activists enthusiastically refer to their people as “la raza” — Spanish for “the race.” Chicano, Tejano, and Mestiza politics is largely defined by concern for ethnic and racial identity.
Understood as a statement of ethno-nationalist sentiment, the man waving the flag from the dirt bike calls for closer consideration. What he’s really saying is that “his people” are those who share his ethnicity and nationality, and that those people constitute a sovereign nation within a nation. This is the purest demonstration of where multiculturalism leads: a million tiny sovereign nations masquerading as one, but segregated and unbound, without any allegiance to the larger nation they inhabit. There will be no assimilation, and there will certainly be no gratitude. Make no mistake: This is the society that the left celebrates when it insists that “our diversity is our strength.”
This exposes the greatest irony of all. The Biden administration made clear that its top priority for four years was fighting ethno-nationalist sentiment in America. When Americans — especially white Americans — center their politics on national, religious, or (God forbid) ethnic identity, they will be surveilled, censored, demonized, arrested, doxxed, debanked, or otherwise humiliated.
But when foreign ethno-nationalists enter the country illegally, burn cars, loot businesses, and openly announce their ethno-nationalism…well, our hands are tied. Not only do the left recoil at deporting them to their home nations, but they celebrate their ethno-nationalist activism and call for sympathetic Americans to join the cause.
An Associated Press radio broadcast played a clip of a protester imploring observers to join her in defying the enforcement of federal law. The woman said, “Don’t be afraid to stand up for our people.” “Our people.” Which people is that? That is the “nation within the nation,” premised explicitly on ethnic and nationalist sentiment, the nation that refuses to assimilate to the values and laws of its host, and the nation that the left insist must be defended, and indeed celebrated.
Like many Americans, I sympathize with and accept the guidance of the Jewish and Christian tradition. We should provide for the stranger within our gates. We should love our neighbors. But to suggest that we’re falling short of those ideals in deporting people is preposterous. In this case, the “stranger” or “neighbor” in question is one who snuck into the house, and who openly denies that the house is, in fact, ours. Thus, the stranger or neighbor who barged in should not be surprised that upon spitting in his host’s face, he finds that his welcome runs out.
Jesus implicitly affirms the legitimacy of nations in the Great Commission: “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations.” We can debate the matter of what, exactly, Christ meant by “nations.” But at this juncture, that question is peripheral. The more pressing query is, “Why can’t we have one?”
Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
Jesus Christ is King
