In 2016, Americans elected Donald Trump as President. President Trump eschewed a number of traditional Republican policies such as free trade, preferring tariffs to encourage trade concessions by other countries. He argued for a larger government, rather than a smaller government, in the form of more surveillance of the borders and in the homeland to root out illegal migrants. He also appeared to win the support of people who valued an older America, one that had fewer, less influential, minorities. The President’s remarks, tweets, and actions, were seen as negative toward establishment institutions like the media, minority groups, and women.
In 2015, and again in 2019, Canadians elected Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister. Justin Trudeau had a strong political pedigree: his father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was known for passing into law a Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect citizens from the overreach of government. Pierre Trudeau was also known for transforming Canada’s immigration system from one that favored European immigrants to a system that opened the door to immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Justin Trudeau’s own election and reelection were built on a strong articulation of the benefits of diversity and inclusiveness.
A rarely articulated but key issue that arose in both the Canadian and American elections was the value of citizenship, regardless of one’s ethnic background, gender, or sexual orientation. Certain voices called for a return to a majoritarian culture, which rejected the notion of equality and equal treatment of all citizens.
At the same time as Canada and the United States were hearing calls to reconsider a middle of the road, traditional liberal political and legal consensus, Europe was seized with similar issues. In a hotly contested referendum, the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union. In 2019, British voters confirmed their support for “Brexit” by electing Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. Marginal political parties across Europe that purveyed negative views of immigrants and nonwhite people surged in the public opinion polls and made gains in Parliament. To be sure, countries recently freed from communism like Poland and Hungary saw a rise in xenophobic parties, but so did politically and economically advanced countries like Germany and Denmark.
The Western World is experiencing a recrudescence of xenophobic thinking, in particular its penchant for othering.1 This significant change was the impetus for writing this book.
The topic of this book is the development and expression of the politics of othering in the United States and Canada. Unlike in Europe, far-right parties are few and far between in North America. However, othering has been present and is present. Othering may be understood as the efforts of members of a politically dominant group to marginalize and subordinate a minority or a politically weaker group. Xenophobia is a dislike of foreigners. Since Western countries are multiethnic, and since dislike of the unlike has included negative attitudes toward women and gay people, it is necessary to use a term that is broader than xenophobia. A preferable term to express this concept is othering. Othering is also distinct from, though related to, nativism. Nativism refers to a preference by some people in a society, for other people whose families have lived for several generations in that society. By including women and gays, othering is broader than nativism though both share a disdain for minorities.
Othering is not the exclusive property of the far right. The far left also has engaged in othering, focused mostly on “elite” or allegedly wealthy people. Joseph Stalin led a campaign against “kulaks,” better-off peasants who were accused of fomenting counter revolution. Scholars estimate that several million of these kulaks were deported, imprisoned, and killed. Hugo Chavez, the deceased leader of Venezuela, railed against “Oligarchs,” who included businesspeople and professionals, and said that the Catholic Church was comprised of “devils.” Chavez disdained and ignored the vital charitable work the Church conducted with orphans and other vulnerable people. So, othering is a phenomenon that is present in the left and the right.
No study of contemporary othering can avoid taking account of populism, a seeming blend of left and right ideas. Populism has many definitions. One useful definition is that the populist sees society as divided into two homogeneous groups: the people and the elite.2 The people are the vast majority and they generally have good sense and work hard. The elite is a smaller number of people who are wealthier, have more prestige, and take advantage of the people through corrupt practices, manipulation, and deceit. Many far-right parties in Europe join populism with nativism—the view that the majority group should dominate a society—and a strong preference for law and order and social conservatism in general (less favorable to gays and women’s rights). There are parties, such as the British Veritas party in 2005, that eschew nativism and othering, while promoting populism and not advocating an authoritarian perspective.3
Taken together—populism, nativism, and a kind of authoritarian perspective—inform the platforms of European populist radical right parties that have elected members to the legislature and garnered headlines since the 1980s. Curiously in terms of economics, the European populist radical right parties have been on both sides of the traditional left–right political spectrum. Historically, left and right have been divided over the issue of equality of result.4 Left-wing parties have tried to reduce economic inequality as much as possible, through higher taxes and more social benefits. Right-wing parties press for lower taxes and fewer public funds aimed at reducing economic inequality. All social welfare programs—from government-sponsored health care to social security—move in the direction of greater economic equality. Cutbacks to these programs can move away from equality, hence further right.
In Europe, populist radical right parties in some cases have favored more social benefits for workers—a traditional left-wing demand, while others have engaged in welfare chauvinism—a wish to deny social benefits to immigrants and refugees. Welfare chauvinism, inasmuch as it reduces social benefit payments, is where traditional right views meet the right whose target is the minorities.
Canada and the United States have certainly heard from political actors who advocated for populism, and some have also advocated for nativism and authoritarian policies in a democratic context.
A critical distinction between the advocates of populist radical right ideas and more extreme political actors, according to Cas Mudde, is that popular radical right supporters are democrats who believe in competing in elections and in majority rule.5
Another component of the far right which exhibits othering may be termed extremist.6 Extremists are anti-democratic. They believe in a strong leader who will rule without checks and balances that are maintained through an independent judiciary and a free press. Extremists are looking to remake society in a revolutionary fashion: to create a homogeneous society by reducing the influence and in some cases the presence of minorities. They believe that they can reverse a slide toward what they see as societal decadence and engineer a national rebirth.7 It is on the extreme that one moves toward fascism, a revolutionary effort to remake social reality. These radical anti-democrats can engage in extreme, violent, othering. Should democracy succumb, the consequences for minorities would be severe.
This book will examine how, and under what conditions, othering, encompassed in populism and other political concepts, has been translated into politics and policy. What has been the level of influence of this type of thinking on Canada and the United States since the late nineteenth century? Has the weight of the politics of othering remained at the same level in both countries over time? What are the factors behind differences in the use of political othering in each country? Has this disjunction always been in play or is it a recent development? What is a likely future path for othering in both countries?
The book will follow a methodology that includes case studies and, turning to the historical record, adopt a comparative approach.
Case studies can illuminate facts and provide insights about how societies treat an issue. As well, our case studies will identify key societal actions in the past (1870s to 1990s) that continue to have important implications today.
The book includes case studies that will help to explain patterns in American and Canadian politics with reference to a number of minority groups. The cases chosen have received attention from scholars, thereby increasing the amount of information that will help to shed light on othering in both countries. The cases flow one after another historically so that we cover a series of time periods. This will shed light on whether or not and if so, how, othering politics evolves. Finally, each case will have a contemporary resonance in terms of the issues it raises so that they will be of greater interest to readers.
This book will argue that the right–left paradigm is not useful when analyzing the politics of othering, a foundational human tendency. The politics of othering has been practiced in both the United States and Canada since the nineteenth century (our period of study is from the nineteenth century to today). Politicians and opinion leaders have used othering to score points and gain more support. These politicians and opinion leaders “supplied” the othering of minorities in response to a “demand” by a significant portion of the public for action against the targeted groups. The public demand for othering was based on a human tendency to dislike the unlike. The proportion of the public that made this demand for othering grew larger in the context of fears and uncertainties about personal financial pressures, war, terrorism, and seeming social/cultural threat. All othering—the demeaning of and discrimination against, and violent treatment of minorities—is abhorrent. With exceptions, prior to World War II, the politics of othering had comparatively worse impacts on Canadian minorities compared with American minorities, while since World War II, the politics, of othering was more significant in the United States than in Canada. Factors that fed into this flip include the history of slavery in the United States versus English–French political duality in Canada, Canadian social policy advances after World War II, and the valuing of citizenship that grew in Canada after World War II.
This book is not a history of othering or discrimination. Nor does it probe the serious, and often tragic impacts of othering on individuals. Its scope is more limited. It tries to compare how politicians and public figures have used othering to advance their interests in a series of cases, set in a similar timeframe. The minorities referenced are considered in distinct periods of history. There is one exception: Blacks in the United States and Canada. The experience of Black Americans, over centuries, a...