'Go Back' & The Squad
The sustained nativist campaign against four progressive congresswomen of color - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib - that escalated from Trump's racist 'go back to your countries' tweets in July 2019 to crowd chants of 'Send Her Back' targeting Rep. Omar. The attacks revealed Trump's strategy of using explicit racism to energize his base and frame diverse Democratic women as un-American enemies within. Three of the four congresswomen were born in the United States; the fourth (Omar) became a citizen as a teenager. The attacks drew condemnation from the House, which passed a resolution declaring Trump's comments 'racist.' Trump then extended the playbook to attack Rep. Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore as 'rat-infested.' The Squad narrative presaged the broader 2020 campaign strategy of racial polarization.
The thread, event by event
- Racist tweets telling congresswomen of color to "go back" to their countries
Trump tweets that congresswomen should 'go back' to 'crime infested' countries - three of four were born in the US.
- House condemns Trump's 'racist comments' in historic resolution
House passes resolution condemning Trump's 'racist comments.'
- Calls 'send her back' crowd 'incredible patriots' one day after claiming disapproval
After rally crowd chants 'Send Her Back' about Omar, Trump calls them 'incredible patriots.'
- Smears majority-Black Baltimore district as a 'disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess'
Trump extends racial attacks to Rep. Cummings and Baltimore, calling it 'rodent infested.'
Synthesis
AI synthesisThe Squad attacks represented Trump's most explicit deployment of the racist 'go back where you came from' trope - a classic expression of white nativism. The attacks served multiple purposes: energizing the base with explicit racism, defining Democrats by their most progressive members, and testing how far explicit racial attacks could go. The House condemnation was bipartisan in fact (all Democrats plus 4 Republicans) but meaningless in consequence. Trump's reversal on the 'Send Her Back' chants (briefly distancing, then calling chanters 'patriots') showed his pattern of testing boundaries and then embracing what he initially claimed to oppose. The extension to Baltimore showed the attacks were a template, not a one-off.