And US absolutely has been xenophobic for years, by official federal policy. I'm really surprised you're not aware of it, but here's a small selection of examples:
- Both our elected and appointed leaders are white nationalists. Our president called all Mexicans murderers and rapists, said African migrants were eating random pets in a rural US town (they weren't, obviously, but it was intended to exacerbate xenophobia)
- Our federal government has a mandate using ICE to try to eject anyone with a Hispanic name from the country (has already deported US citizens based on being hispanic/latino). We even boot people seeing asylum, often exporting them to foreign prisons even if they've never had a criminal record. We have concentration camps now, filled entirely with foreigners, and people who have lived here for decades but were foreigners.
- We stopped accepting new visas from 75 countries. We may even expel you for social media posts we don't like, or for attending a protest that our citizens can attend. We increased travel bans for people from majority Muslim countries. H1-B visas have been rolled back to only the highest paying jobs, and you may need to pay a $15,000 bond. We also now collect and store foreigners' biometric data indefinitely.
- Let's not forget the tariffs on virtually all other nations, to say nothing of "America First" and the new "Greater North America doctrine".
I think you got lost in the rhetoric somewhere.
Tariffs are just the US adjusting to reality which other countries are slow to do. Free trade died all on its own, because the pandemic showed that critical industries were hollowed out by free trade in a way that could be appreciated from a national security perspective. That situation was favoring China too much, so we need to unwind that some.
Tariffs already existed in many countries in practice, so it's not like the US reinvented modern tariffs.
Pew [1] suggests that the changes around the start of 2025 were due increased restrictions on asylum applications under the previous admin and EOs by the current one to restrict new immigration. Given the rough numbers [2] of about 40k asylum grants per year in the early 2020s, I doubt the previous admin's actions are playing much of a role here.
Stating that none of it (immigration acceptance) changed under this administration might technically be true - with respect to the number of countries applying, but misses this point.
[0]: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2026/...
[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi...
[2]: https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-seek-asylum-in...
If you feel like formulating a good argument about immigration, I'll listen, but you haven't provided one.
It can happen in Europe too, but the full fall is not that close.
The structure of the US makes it basically the single most secure democracy anywhere right now or in history. No country in Europe or Europe as a whole is even competitive by comparison. The main issue we're facing is that we are by far the primary target for foreign funded activism and systemic attacks, because China and Russia hated NGOs promoting color revolutions.
That is also part of the rule of law issue, but the system is overall managing quite well. It's all moving in slow motion, but many important metrics are going in the right direction, which we need as that's part of deterring China.
"The United States was the most prominent liberal democracy for much of the 20th and early 21st centuries, but has undergone significant democratic backsliding and a shift toward a hybrid regime—a political system combining autocratic and democratic features.[185][186][237] There is an ongoing debate among political scientists on whether the country is more appropriately classified as an electoral autocracy or illiberal democracy, with few still considering it a robust liberal democracy.[238]"
How do you figure? I hear you have roving gangs of masked thugs beating up random citizens with the backing of your government, that doesn't sound very democratically secure, especially with what healthcare costs over there.
This is just not true. It is failing visibly and loudly fast. It used to fail slowly but the process speeded up.
American administration supports Russia now. It praises Russian, Chinese, Belarus leaders again and again. It praises Orban. It hates last bastion of democracy - Europe.
China is not detered. Its power is growing while American one is going down. Trump openly admires its leader. China is celebrating current state of America.
So secure, in fact, that it has secured itself even against the influence of its own citizens.
Also, we have guns. LOTS of guns. The U.S. military's first and sole responsibility is to the constitution itself. If any state or the federal government tries to get rid of their constitutions, the military can rightfully take it over and re-establish a constitution.
There is no other country that's even remotely close to this secure.