A controversial new caucus expected to be introduced in Parliament would champion ‘Anglo-Saxon political traditions’ and work on infrastructure ‘that reflects the architectural, technical and aesthetic value befitting the progeny of European architecture,’ according to a document that seems to describe the caucus.
The document was first reported on Friday by Punchbowl News, which said representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar are behind the “America First Caucus.”
On Saturday, Greene claimed in clear reference to the Punchbowl News coverage Twitter that the document was a “staff-level draft proposal from an outside group that I had not read”.
In a statement to CBS News, Greene’s communications director Nick Dyer said the caucus platform “will be announced to the public very soon.”
Greene is a controversial figure who was stripped of her commission assignments earlier this year in response to her earlier promotion of conspiracy theories, racist social media posts and apparent endorsement of violence against Democrats.
GOP representative Louie Gohmert, a staunch ally of former President Trump who was reportedly invited to join the caucus, told CBS News Friday that he is looking at the language but had not yet made a decision on whether or not to join. and was unaware of other options. He said he did not know when the caucus would be launched.
“Well, I haven’t seen that, but it’s not about race at all,” said Gohmert when asked about the specific language. “I’ll have to go back and see.”
Earlier on Friday, he described the aims of the upcoming caucus for reporters as “not selfish.”
“If we let our country go without caring for America and making sure we are viable for the future, then we won’t be able to help the other countries and that would be a tragedy for the world. It’s not selfish. just get our own country in order so that it is sustainable and enforced so that we can help other countries, ”said Gohmert.
Gosar’s office has not responded to requests for comment.
Representative Matt Gaetz, another associate of Mr. Trump, tweeted Friday that he was “proud” to participate in the caucus.
Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy implicitly criticized the draft caucus platform in a tweet on Fridayalthough he did not mention Greene or Gosar by name.
“America is built on the idea that we are all created equal and that success is earned through honest and hard work. It is not based on identity, race or religion. The Republican Party is Lincoln’s party and the one with more opportunities. for all Americans – no nativist dog whistles, ”McCarthy wrote.
A document on the caucus titled “America First Caucus Policy Platform” says it exists “to promote congressional policies that will benefit the American nation in the long run.” It says that “a certain intellectual boldness is needed” among its members “to follow in President Trump’s footsteps, possibly stepping on a few toes and sacrificing sacred cows for the good of the American nation.”
The document uses nativist language to discourage illegal as well as legal immigration, arguing that “we cannot ignore the impact of mass immigration on reducing job opportunities and falling wages for Americans.”
“America is a nation with a border and a culture, bolstered by a common respect for unique Anglo-Saxon political traditions,” says the draft caucus platform. “History has shown that social trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are massively imported into a country, especially without institutional support for assimilation and an expanded welfare state to save them if they do not make a positive contribution to the country.”
The platform discourages birthright citizenship, claiming that immigrants who came to the United States before 1965 were “ more highly educated, earned higher wages, and did not have an extensive welfare state to fall back on when they couldn’t make it in America and so didn’t reside in the country at the expense of the native. “
Since 1960 there has been a major shift in the countries of origin of immigrants to the United States. According to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, the shift has been from predominantly European countries to predominantly Latin American and Asian countries, with recent large contingents of immigrants also hailing from Africa. The United States enacted a series of racist immigration policies in the 19th and early 20th centuries aimed at limiting immigration from non-European countries, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 – the year explicitly named by the caucus platform as a watershed moment for immigration – ended the national origin quotas that kept immigrants mainly from European countries. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the quotas, in force since the 1920s, were “designed to favor Western and Northern European countries and allow the admission of immigrants from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South and Eastern Europe. Europe drastically. “
The platform also calls for US infrastructure to be modeled on “European architecture,” which is described as “classically beautiful.”
The focus on “Anglo-Saxon” and European terminology could be read as a disguised analogy for “White”. The term “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant”, or WASP, has traditionally been used in American culture to refer to wealthy white families, usually with British ancestors. The Anglo-Saxons were a group that lived in England before the Norman invasion of 1066.
American white nationalists also rely heavily on Medieval, Viking, and Anglo-Saxon imagery to justify their prejudices. At the white racist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, some protesters carried banners with Anglo-Saxon runes, iconography also used by the Nazis.