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Thread. Years ago, when I began studying the American Colonization Society (a 19th c. organization that promoted the removal of black people from the U.S. and created Liberia for this purpose), I'd occasionally come across websites that appeared to be history-oriented...1/
...but a few clicks in turned out to be supportive of the ACS's worldview that black people did not belong in America. 2/
Nowadays, one doesn't need to stumble into the internet's dark corners to find such sentiments, for the president, in posting his "go back" tweet, is sharing them for all the world to see. 3/
And like the colonizationists of old, Trump signals to others that it's OK to broadcast and act on such views. (s/o to @SethCotlar for the idea that Trump is both a symptom *and* a vector of this phenomenon.) 4/
Just as there has been a rise in hate crimes in contemporary America, colonizationists--some of whom were "gentlemen of property and standing"--were among those who mobbed black Americans during the pre-Civil War years. 5/
Perhaps the most easily overlooked parallel between Trump and colonizationists is their penchant for playing the victim (h/t to @AdamSerwer for sparking this idea). 6/
When called out on his bigotry, Trump deflects, insisting that others act unjustly (a sentiment widely shared among Republicans, 75% of whom believe that white people are the subjects of discrimination and a majority of whom believe Christians are treated unfairly). 7/
Likewise, when the colonizationists described free black people as "degraded" and "vicious," the implication was that they were tarnishing a sterling nation. 8/
This sentiment lead to what many describe as the nadir of Lincoln's presidency: his August 1862 meeting with several black leaders, wherein he essentially blamed African Americans for the war. 9/
I'll soon be attending #SHEAR19 (the conference hosted by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic), where I'll be commenting on several papers concerning colonization. As I finish typing up my remarks, the material hardly seems like history. 10/
