Racism and bigotry have always been a part of this country (and every other for that matter though you will see it less in countries with a more uniform population for obvious reasons). The civil rights movement was only a few decades ago, still within the lifetime of a vast number of those still living. Discrimination was also alive and well when waves of Irish and Italian immigrants (and just about any other group) came to this country.

Having said that, I've never believed that those views represented the majority of American nor do I believe that it does today. And while the media will spare no opportunity to stoke the flames of racism...for ratings purposes I assume...I believe things have steadily gotten better, not worse. People are too quick to play the racism card over any disagreement. Don't agree with foreign aid? You must be anti-Semitic. Think it is prudent to limit travel from countries that are state sponsors of terrorism? Clearly you are a bigot. Believe in a liberal immigration policy but also in border security? Obviously you are a racist. Those kinds of accusations are nonsense but I see them all the time. It's gotten so bad that my knee-jerk reaction is to yell "bullshit!" any time I hear an accusation of racism before I even know the facts of the matter.

Yes, racism exists and while I think things are getting better all the time, racism and other forms of bigotry will probably always exist. But we don't need to look for it behind every political disagreement.

As far as the Statue of Liberty and how welcoming the U.S. is to immigrants, to put things in perspective I would just point out that the U.S. has the largest immigrant population in the world beating out the next country on the list by a factor of 4. Nostalgia aside, I would say the dream is alive now as much as it ever was. Anybody who thinks racism and bigotry was less in 1882 when the Statue of Liberty came along than it is today is wearing some seriously rose tinted glasses. Has legal immigration declined under Trump? Yes...by a whopping 7%. No doubt that decline will be larger in the near term due to COVID-19 and that number will be used to accuse Trump of racism.

And if you don't agree with me, you must be a racist bigot who doesn't believe in science.