TRUMP'S IMMUNOLOGICAL FANTASY Donald Trump's ideology grows out of an immunological fantasy. To maintain the nation’s boundaries, a wall must be constructed, and laws passed to prevent “foreign elements” from entering and contaminating the nation. This is what MAGA means: refusal to be penetrated. The President equates his own body with the American body politic and imagines other citizens do so as well. The danger is that “porous boundaries” will allow alien elements to seep in and infect his body. In advocating creation of firm, solid borders, nationalists seek to create a less vulnerable body not easily penetrated and violated.

The immune system identifies cells that “belong” to the body—in contrast to foreign cells foreign—that do not "belong." Alien cells are rejected and destroyed.

Nations are constructed based on the model of the immune system. Like human bodies, national bodies are created based on the idea that sharply defined boundaries are necessary.

Nations, like bodies, are imagined to be besieged or threatened by foreign or enemy elements. The imperiled nation must “continuously work to quell alien invaders” (Martin, 1999).

When a nation feels its boundaries are porous, it may seek to create walls to prevent alien or foreign cells from entering. Nationalism os a form of immunology.

Hitler and the Nazis treated the German nation as if a body with an immune system recognizing what “self” and rejected “not-self.” Identifying Jews as foreign or not-self cells within the German body politic, the national immune system acted—could not do otherwise--but to “reject” or destroy these alien entities.

Donald Trump's ideology revolves around an immunological concept. To maintain the nation’s boundaries, a wall must be constructed—and laws passed—to prevent “foreign elements” from entering the nation.

Donald Trump equates his own body with the American body politic—and assumes many other Americans do so as well. These Americans bind their existence to a specific “geographic space” (Stein, 2013). The danger is that porous boundaries may allow alien elements to seep into the national body.

In advocating the creation of firm, solid borders, nationalists seek to create a less vulnerable national body--one not easily penetrated or violated by alien, foreign bodies.