He begins his narrative before independence when settlers’ dreams of expanding westward and exterminating Indians were quickly constrained by British geopolitical aspirations. On the other are those who call for an expanded government with responsibilities to all, including non-whites. On one side are those who link individual freedom to attacking non-whites and to a limited federal government. the social republic, if not barbarism vs. history as a war between two visions of the nation. There is no ‘divine, messianic crusade’ that can harness and redirect passions outward.” In other words, Trump’s campaign to build a wall along the Mexican border marks a break with the ideology that the United States is ever-expanding along an evolving frontier, but continues the nation’s violent posture toward non-whites, particularly in the border territories. Trumpism is extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring.
“What distinguishes earlier racist presidents like Wilson and Jackson from Trump,” Grandin writes, “is that they were in office during the upswing of America’s moving out into the world, when domestic political polarization could be stanched and the country held together… by endless growth.
A s indicated by its title, historian Greg Grandin’s The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America is a sweeping history of the United States that aims to bring insight to bear on the present, in particular, the racist nativism of President Donald Trump.
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