The term “America First” may seem innocuous. But it has a long history in the United States, and it’s not as benevolent as it sounds.
“America First” doesn’t sound like a
bad
thing, but let’s be clear: It is impossible to use a slogan with
white supremacist and anti-Semitic origins
going back to the 1930s, without carrying that baggage with you. A Times reporter asked Donald about his embrace of the term, and
the New Yorker commented on his response:
“To me, America First is a brand-new modern term. I never related it to the past,” Trump said. People had pointed out that it was, as Trump put it, “a historical term,” but he denied the resonance.[…] It may be that he really doesn’t care that some people hear disturbing echoes. He may not have thought a thing when
the Anti-Defamation League asked him to stop using the phrase, in March, and redirected fifty-six thousand dollars in donations from the Trump family to anti-bullying and anti-bias causes.
So he knows. He’s been told. He doesn’t care.
And now his campaign has released a new app, designed by uCampaign — the company who
did similar work
for the NRA and Ted Cruz —
called “America First.”
(Not “Trump 2016.”) Which tells you something about who he’s trying to organize.
Trump’s app, spotted by Adweek in the
Apple’s App Store
and
Google Play,
evidently went live today, though it has not yet been promoted by the campaign. An email to the GOP candidate’s press office wasn’t immediately answered. Notably and perhaps counterintuitively, the app is called America First, rather than a more predictable and discoverable name like Trump for President or Trump 2016.
We’ve
warned about this
before, our conviction that Donald Trump has a sinister, long-term goal that goes beyond this presidential election. Just in the past few weeks, he has aligned himself with disgraced Fox News honcho Roger Ailes, and white nationalist mainstreamer Steve Bannon of Breitbart.com.
Is Trump launching an app for his presidential campaign or to further his status as a white nationalist figurehead? Judge for yourself:
The app offers news and other text content, videos, a donations channel and social media components that allow for Trump-Pence supporters to communicate and connect.
Users can find nearby like-minded activists on a state-by-state basis.