As backlash against Trump’s ‘go back’ comments builds, here’s Ronald Reagan’s ‘love letter to immigrants’

Authored by marketwatch.com and submitted by Treemailman
image for As backlash against Trump’s ‘go back’ comments builds, here’s Ronald Reagan’s ‘love letter to immigrants’

‘You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany, or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk or Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.’

That’s an excerpt from a letter Ronald Reagan highlighted in his final speech as president. In light of President Trump’s recent inflammatory comments, the clip has been making its way around social media this week.

Here’s the full speech, which has been viewed more than 1.6 million times from this April tweet alone:

President Ronald Reagan's final speech was a love letter to immigrants:

'Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American. We draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world.' pic.twitter.com/4Tpo9vUpLw — Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) April 13, 2019

Meanwhile, the fallout from Trump’s tweetstorm, in which the commander-in-chief essentially told four congresswomen of color that they should go back where they came from, continues to build, at home and abroad.

Still, Trump hasn’t backed down from his comments.

When asked at the White House Monday if he believed the women were not American, he replied, “If somebody has a problem with our country, if someone doesn’t want to be in our country, they should leave. That’s all.”

At a press conference the same day, Rep. Ilhan Omar, the only one of the four women who wasn’t born in the U.S., fired back.

“This is a president who has said grab women by the p—y. This is a president who has called black athletes sons of b—–s,” she said. “This is a president who calls people from black and brown countries sh–holes and this is a president who has equated neo-Nazis with those who protest against them in Charlottesville.”

shapu on July 16th, 2019 at 16:49 UTC »

Ronald Reagan would not have even made it to primary season in the modern GOP.

EDIT: Lotta replies out there saying I'm saying good things about Reagan, or in one case accusing me of "lionizing" him. I'm not doing that. I simply stated that he wouldn't survive in the modern GOP. There's a difference.

Negative_Gravitas on July 16th, 2019 at 16:10 UTC »

I bow to no one in my dislike for Reagan, but honestly, the dude could not get elected dog catcher right now.

Flashy_Garage on July 16th, 2019 at 16:09 UTC »

Meanwhile Germany let in almost a million refugees in 2015 and the German economy is benefiting from it. What happened to the "shining city on a hill?"