| Donald Trump's policy builds on an an immunological concept. To maintain the nation’s boundaries, a wall must be constructed to prevent “foreign elements” from entering the nation.
Trump equates his own body with the American body politic, assuming Mexicans and other foreigners are breaking through American boundaries and creeping into his body. A wall must be constructed. The idea of the body politic is a projection of the human body.
Advocating the creation of solid borders, nationalists seek to create a less vulnerable body not so easily penetrated by "foreign" cells. |
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At the heart of the immune system is its function of distinguishing self and not-self. The immune system is the ever-vigilant "protector of the environment of the body (Emily Martin, 1999).” Anything foreign daring to invade this environment must be detected and rapidly removed.
The immune system identifies “belonging” to the body—in contrast to cells that do not belong. Alien cells must be rejected or destroyed.
Nations—like bodies—possess sharply defined boundaries and frequently are imagined to be besieged or threatened. The imperiled nation must “continuously work to quell alien invaders” (Emily Martin, 1999).”
When a nation feels its boundaries are porous, it may seek to create walls to prevent alien or foreign cells from entering the body politic. Nationalism is a form of immunology.
University of Berlin Professor Eugen Fischer asserted in a lecture on June 20, 1939 that when a people wants to preserve its own nature it must “reject alien elements.” When these elements have insinuated themselves, the people must “suppress and eliminate them.”
The Jew is such an alien, Fischer declared, and therefore when he wants to insinuate himself he must be “warded off.” Such actions were merely self-defense. “I reject Jewry,” Fischer concluded, “with every means in my power.”
Hitler and the Nazis treated the German nation as if a body with the immune system's ability to recognize “self” and reject what is “not-self.” Identifying Jews as foreign self cells within the German body politic, the national immune system acted—could not do otherwise but to “reject” or destroy these alien entities.
In Mein Kampf (1924), Hitler posed the question, “Could anyone believe that Germany was not subject to exactly the same laws as all other human organisms?” Conceiving of Germany as a living organism, Hitler was suggesting that—like any other organism—the nation possessed an immune system that automatically destroyed entities identified as foreign.
In the United States today, former President Trump presents and conveys an immunological concept. To maintain the nation’s boundaries, a wall has be constructed to prevent “foreign elements” from entering the nation.
Nazi philosopher Alfred Rosenberg stated (1970) that the spirit of a race realizes its ability to “assimilate everything racially and spiritually akin,” and to “eliminate and suppress everything foreign.” Members of alien groups had to be prevented from entering the body politic because they are “out of tune with our kind and violate the inner construction of our being.”
Donald Trump equates his own body with the American body politic—and it seems many other Americans do so as well. These Americans bind their existence to “geographic space” (Stein, 2013). "Porous boundaries” 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 foreign bodies.
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