Trump to Outline Ideological Test of ‘American Values’ for Immigrants – Which He Would Not Pass

Who Gets to Decide What ‘American Values’ Are, and How Are You Supposed to Learn Them?

Donald Trump will outline what he purportedly believes are “American values” and propose to supporters that all immigrants seeking visas allowing them to enter the U.S. will have to pass a test to prove they hold those values, in a speech he is slated to deliver Monday afternoon.

The test “would assess a candidate’s stances on issues like religious freedom, gender equality and gay rights. Through questionnaires, searching social media, interviewing friends and family or other means, applicants would be vetted to see whether they support American values like tolerance and pluralism,” the AP reports.

But what, exactly, are “American values” according to Donald Trump? And what are they according to the GOP?

Based on his public remarks and his social media accounts, any reasonable person would deduce Trump himself does not “support American values like tolerance and pluralism,” nor does he support “religious freedom, gender equality and gay rights.”

Nor does the majority of the GOP, and certainly his friends on the religious right – whom he met at an anti-gay conference of hundreds of evangelicals on Friday – do not “support American values like tolerance and pluralism,” nor do they support “religious freedom, gender equality and gay rights.”

AmericaBlog editor John Aravosis Monday morning writes, “under this proposal, Donald Trump, most of the GOP, and his Evangelical base would be banned from entering the US.” He notes that “people didn’t necessarily arrive at Ellis Island with “American values” already in tow. They learned those values by living in America.”

Over at the Libertarian website Reason, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, “just for kicks,” offers what she thinks a Trump American-Values Immigration Quiz might just look like. A few excerpts:

Do you think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry?

No, Trump told Meet the Press last August that while he thinks “it’s great” that his hometown, New York City, is filled with gays, he is “not in favor of gay marriage.”

Should transgender people be forced to use the bathroom that matches their biological sex?

Trick question—the answer is “state’s rights.” In April, Trump said transgender men and women should “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate,” but later qualified this by saying it should be left up to individual states.

You get the picture, even if Trump does not.

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license