In the 2010s many on the right began citing Martin Luther King Jr.’s line about judging people “by the content of their character.” That stance was partly a reaction to progressive critiques of colorblindness, which argued that addressing structural racial disparities required race-conscious policies. In policy and media this produced DEI initiatives and a torrent of criticism aimed at white people, occasionally accompanied by extreme rhetoric that went largely unpunished.
That context helps explain why conservatives embraced individualist rhetoric: it defended people from being judged by group identity. But fast-forward a few years and the rhetoric has flipped. When an Afghan man shot two National Guardsmen, the Wall Street Journal warned against blaming Afghan refugees as a group. Stephen Miller replied that mass migration imports societies, not just individuals. Around the same time, revelations about massive welfare fraud tied to some Somalis in Minnesota prompted Trump to denounce Somalis wholesale, arguing that people from failed countries are undesirable in America.
This is hardly new. A century ago immigration restrictionists argued that people from “underdeveloped” regions were inherently inferior, a view labeled “racism” by historians like John Higham. Today’s rhetoric is a form of racial collectivism: judging people by the collective condition of their homeland rather than as individuals.
So what happened to MLK’s ideal? The short answer: when the right regained power, many who invoked individualism while losing began to abandon it. Individualism, like free speech, often gets cited defensively when one’s side is losing and abandoned when it’s winning. Some Americans genuinely believe in judging individuals, but others use individualism cynically. Much of MAGA fits the latter pattern.
MAGA’s central goal is immigration restriction. The movement fears that immigrants from poor or violent countries will “recreate” those countries’ conditions in the U.S. When leaders like Trump and Miller express this view, they’re sincere: they believe national origin and homeland conditions predict immigrant communities’ future behavior. That belief—racial collectivism—underpins the movement.
But MAGA faces a political problem: most Americans don’t think this way. Polling shows concern about immigration rose and fell with recent years, but long-run trends show pro-immigration sentiment recovering. Many Americans favor treating people individually: polls find broad support for equal opportunity and mixed support for race-conscious policies. Views about immigrants vary by origin, but not strictly by how developed those origins are. For instance, recent surveys show immigration from Africa viewed more favorably than from some more developed regions.
Selective immigration and U.S. institutions matter more than homeland conditions. Research shows the U.S. immigration system is highly selective; Lazear (2017) argues selectivity explains much of immigrants’ educational attainment. Indian immigrants illustrate the point: despite India’s low per-capita GDP, Indian Americans have among the highest incomes and education levels of any ancestry group. Indian-heavy Fremont, California, is wealthy, safe, and prosperous—not a version of India—showing immigrants don’t simply recreate their homelands.
Similarly, El Paso—largely Mexican-descent—looks nothing like Juárez across the border. American institutions, economy, culture, and law offer different incentives and constraints. Yes, some criminal influences have carried over historically, but the differences between immigrant communities in the U.S. and their source countries are huge.
If Miller and Trump are wrong about an inevitable cultural transfer, why push the argument? Because for MAGA to succeed they must change public thinking: they need people to evaluate individuals by group membership. To do that they search for groups they can persuade Americans to fear or hate. Political campaigns replay this tactic: in 2024 Trump and JD Vance spread a false story that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pets; it was a hoax, but it served to smear a group. Now Somalis in Minnesota are under attack—partly because they are poorer, often refugees, visibly Muslim, and politically active in Minneapolis—making them an easier target than quieter, relatively better-off immigrant groups.
Somalis’ poverty and refugee backgrounds make them less selective and more vulnerable to negative stereotyping. Their political prominence in local Democratic politics also fuels fears of “takeover,” even though political organizing by immigrant groups has long precedents in American history. If MAGA can get Americans to reject Somalis categorically, they win more than a policy skirmish: they change the terms of public discourse. Asking “Are Somalis bad?” legitimizes asking the same about Afghans, Haitians, Jews, Indians, Chinese—any group—moving public life toward judging groups rather than individuals.
Even if targeted groups defend themselves successfully, the damage is that they had to defend group membership rather than individual actions. That shift would erode the liberal commitment to individual rights and equal citizenship, nudging the U.S. toward an estate society where groups, not individuals, are the primary political units.
In the 20th century liberals beat back racial collectivism—outlawing Jim Crow and making immigration laws more neutral—largely by appealing to Americans’ commitment to individualism. But by embracing identity politics and arguing against colorblindness in the 2010s, progressives reduced the moral force of that appeal. That’s not to blame progressives for right-wing racial collectivism—the right has always sought it—but it helps explain why appeals to individualism ring less powerfully now.
The danger is real: if the political center loses the principled defense of judging people as individuals, the U.S. risks letting racial collectivism reshape civic life. That’s what’s at stake when political movements try to make you hate one group or another.
