Rampant xenophobia.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Comment - Viewpoint essay

What is happening to our country? I look around, and I do not recognize it. Bigotry and irrationality are holding sway, and the most precious American values are under attack. The very character of our country is at stake.

With economic pain at the highest level ever seen by most Americans, and with minorities especially hard hit, we're seeing a revolt not by people of color, nor the unemployed, nor the foreclosed upon. Instead, we're seeing a revolt by the white middle class. It's a revolt against the very notion of a positive role for government in helping people. It's a revolt against Latin American immigrants. It's a revolt against Muslim Americans. And it's a revolt against our black President.

Opportunistic and rightwing Republican politicians, business front groups, and media outlets like Fox have ginned up the hatred.

The tea party movement began in the spring of 2009, when Barack Obama was still popular. Funded by Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and promoted incessantly by Fox, the tea party phenomenon caught on.

The anger was free-floating, the issues were inchoate, but the import was obvious: The rightists were on the march.

This spring, much of the anger attached itself to the scapegoat of illegal immigration from south of the border. Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona led this disgraceful charge by signing a law that required police to pull anyone over they suspected might be here illegally. And a majority not only of Arizonans but also of the American public supported this law.

"We're all Arizonans now," said Sarah Palin, who rushed to Phoenix to stand by Brewer. (Imagine a serious candidate for the Presidency saying in 1963, "We're all Alabamans now.")

The issue then moved from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., where Republican Senators fanned the flames of intolerance.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced an ugly phrase to the national conversation: "anchor babies." He said pregnant Latin American women cross the border to deliver so their children can become automatic citizens.

"People come here to have babies," says Graham. "They come here to drop a child. It's called, 'Drop and leave.'"

From this phantom problem, Graham leapt to the conclusion that the idea of "birthright citizens is a mistake." Taking a drastic step further, Graham said he was considering legislation to alter the Fourteenth Amendment so as to deny citizenship as a birthright.

Adopted on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution...