CBS News President Donald Trump at a rally in Houston on behalf of Sen. Ted Cruz's re-election campaign on Oct. 22, 2018.
President Trump is credited, by foes and fans alike, with a capacity not only to attract attention at will but to trigger the reaction he desires, whether ire or ardor, distraction or elation. Even close observers are at times left wondering precisely what they’ve heard and seen and how they should respond.
And so it was with his widely quoted “nationalism” monologue in Houston on Monday.
At a rally in support of former antagonist Ted Cruz’s Senate re-election campaign, Trump lamented that “radical Democrats” wanted to turn power over to “globalists” and then sought to set himself apart from those groups — who are marked by “not caring about our country so much” — by christening himself a nationalist, revealing in his comments an awareness that the term is a historically freighted one that democratic leaders largely eschew:
‘You know, they have a word. It sort of became old-fashioned. It’s called a nationalist. And I say, “Really? We’re not supposed to use that word.” You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, OK? I’m a nationalist. Nationalist. Use that word. Use that word.’
Some in the Houston crowd, as evidenced in the video below, did the next best thing: responding with a “U.S.A.” chant.
In media coverage late Monday and through the day Tuesday, political commentators wrestled with whether Trump fully understood the term in its dark historical contexts (racism and even Nazism among them) or, alternatively, meant only to characterize himself as a patriot under a different label. Was he chiefly trolling his critics and the notion of political correctness? Was he merely seeking to amuse an audience likely to delight in transgressive speech?
On social media, conclusions were reached more readily:
"Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first." - Charles de Gaulle
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) October 23, 2018
What Trump did tonight is finally finish the rhetorical journey. He acknowledged what he's been the whole time: a nationalist, one of many in the world. He frames politics in transactional and deeply nationalistic terms, focused on perceived threats to his concept of the nation.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 23, 2018
Self-proclaimed "nationalist" , Donald Trump, talks so tough when discussing his militant plans against children seeking asylum, but rolls over for autocrats in Russia, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. Not my kind of "nationalist."
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) October 23, 2018
Perhaps predictably, one key Trump ally was said to be delighted with the president’s word choice:
I interviewed Bannon tonight and he was very very pleased Trump used word “nationalist.” He read it aloud from his phone. https://t.co/H6Xt5i8oqU
— Josh Robin (@joshrobin) October 23, 2018
Late Tuesday, Trump, speaking during a so-called pool spray in the Oval Office, said the term nationalist should be brought back, but suggested he was unfamiliar with the reasons it’s heard so rarely in open public discourse.
