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1. Trump has inspired the American right to coalesce around the idea that diversity is a threat to the nation. One can either be pro-nationalism or pro-diversity, we are told, and it's just PC claptrap to think the two could be combined. washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wem…
2. Anyone who's read anything about the history of the modern nation-state (a history which begins roughly in the 18th century), however, can tell you that one of the key functions of the nation is to manage various forms of diversity--to forge a sense of "one" out of "many."
3. Take the US's founding moment for example. Forging a new nation required managing all sorts of diverse interests and identities--western settlers, Southern enslavers, Northern freeholders, land speculators, merchants, debtors, creditors, competing religious denominations, etc.
4. I'm sure you noticed that the "diversity" referred to in the previous tweet is comprised entirely of different groups of white men. Hardly diverse by modern standards, but in the late 18th century these forms of diversity threatened to tear the aspiring nation apart.
5. And this is why the late 18th and early 19th century witnessed the birth of a massive cultural industry devoted to crafting a patriotic, heroic, national narrative about "who we are" that erased much of that diversity, even amongst white men.
6. This potent culture of nationalism didn't make those competing interests and identities go away, it just layered over them a set of compelling stories about "American-ness" that formed a platform upon which those white men could agree to hash out their disagreements.
7. One way to understand the Civil War is as a moment when the question of slavery (and the fundamental humanity of black people) split apart that platform upon which white men with diverse interests had agreed to fight.
8. One thing that comes out forcefully in this book I'm currently reading is that the conservatives of the 1850s, the agnostic-on-slavery Democrats, considered themselves the party of diversity. upress.virginia.edu/title/5192
9. By that they meant that the US should accommodate both slaveholding white people, and non-slaveholding white people. They were very pro-immigrant, but only because they wanted more white men to come to America from Ireland or Germany and become freeholders.
10. The great enemy of these 1850s Democrats were the scary, fanatical antislavery people who would melt the US down into one nation w/o slavery. Who will advocate for the poor oppressed slaveholders? They were also terrified of inter-racial sex, "miscegenation" they called it. 
11. The Republican Party (founded in 1854) organized around the one, basic idea that slavery was not a legitimate form of diversity that should be tolerated by a nation founded on the idea that "all men are created equal."
12. For taking this stand against slavery, Republicans' opponents charged them with being "crazy Socialists who hate the family and religion." Sound familiar?
13. The point is this...contra Tucker, as long as the US has been a nation it's had to deal with the issue of diversity. It's what nations have always done and always will do because people are complex and diverse. Diversity is not some new, PC thing, it's always been with us.
14. Whenever movements have emerged in US history that have advocated for the interests of marginalized groups, those whose power was threatened have always screamed "OMG, they are tyrannical socialists who want to use federal power to force us to live like they want us to!"
15. As this foundational classic puts it, nations are "imagined communities" comprised of an always diverse set of people who think of themselves as engaged in a common project despite not knowing (and oftentimes not even liking) each other. indiebound.org/book/978184467…
16. It strikes me that the Tucker-ish right has decided that there are certain types of Americans, certain ways of being American, that he will simply not tolerate. Who shouldn't be part of the "we" Tucker?
17. The final irony in all of this, of course, is that the president who most eloquently articulated what would become the inclusive American creed that future generations of progressives would seek to translate into reality was Lincoln, the first GOP president.
18. Some of the ideas I've sketched out here are covered in more depth (and brought up to the present) in this excellent podcast episode, esp. from minute 55:00 to the end.
19. The open embrace of white populist nationalism by so many in the right wing intellectual world (not just in the US but internationally) is one of the more terrifying aspects of Trump's ascendancy. This looming future was apparent even in 2017.
20. None other than Steve Bannon, the guy who would become Trump's campaign manager, was informed he had a Nazi-lover working for him at Breitbart in 2015. What did he do? He HIRED HER TO PRODUCE HIS RADIO SHOW.
21. How will white conservatives deal with the fact that they are becoming an ever smaller minority of Americans? If the Oregon GOP is any indication...not well at all. And in ways that potentially threaten the future of constitutional self-government.
22. The story of what’s happening in the Oregon GOP is just a variation on what’s happening elsewhere. Here’s a story about a county-level activist in PA. He identifies Richard Sp*ncer as his mentor. pennlive.com/news/2017/08/w…
23. That guy is now the head of Sp*ncer’s “policy think tank.” theintercept.com/2017/09/07/ric…
