Lee A. Daniels

It’s getting more and more difficult to keep up with the lengthening list of people, groups and nations the Republican Party’s presidency-seekers are designating as targets.

Undocumented Latino immigrants — and their American-citizen children? Check. Gays and lesbians? Sure. Asian immigrants and alleged “birth tourists” who take advantage of the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause? Yep. Black Americans? Of course. #BlackLivesMatter? Univision television anchor Jorge Ramos, for not having good manners? Add them in. Poor people? Right. Women who want to do anything that differentiates them from a doorknob? You, too. Muslims-Americans, and Muslims across the globe? Absolutely. Mexico – for “sending” undocumented Latino immigrants to the U.S. and now, China, whose own economic crisis proves it’s trying to wreck the U.S. economy? The GOP has found you out.

Welcome, all, to the Republican Party’s enemies list. For what would American conservatism be without “enemies” to blame for spoiling the pure, whites-like-us-in-charge vision that’s always been its driving force?

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, got it exactly right in his Aug. 26 observation that, contrary to its supposed principles of religiosity and faith in markets, conservatism is just “a reactionary movement, a defense of power and privilege against democratic challenges from below, particularly in the private spheres of the family and the workplace.”

That dynamic, bolstered by deeply held racist and sexist notions, is why the GOP base hails Donald Trump, who otherwise has virtually none of the personal history or qualities conservatives say they value. Mr. Krugman wrote, “The point is that Trump isn’t a diversion, he’s a revelation, bringing the real motivations of the movement out into the open.”

In that regard, what Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said two weeks ago is equally revealing.

Speaking at a New Hampshire campaign event, Gov. Walker criticized President Obama for not stating the global war against terrorism is in fact a war against Islam itself. Gov. Walker declared that “radical Islamic terrorism” was fighting “a war against not only America and Israel, it’s a war against Christians, it’s a war against Jews, it’s a war against even the handful of reasonable, moderate followers of Islam who don’t share the radical beliefs that these radical Islamic terrorists have.”

Got that? This man who would be president of the United States believes that out of the roughly 1.6 billion followers of Islam around the globe, (compared to 2.2 billion Christians) there are only a “handful of reasonable, moderate” ones.

The governor’s words reminded me of words another governor of another state snarled a half-century ago in the midst of another crisis. That was the declaration of racial war in the defense of white supremacy George C. Wallace declared in his 1963 inaugural speech as governor of Alabama. That rancid speech’s most infamous line was his pledge to defend “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”

The “George Wallace Principle” is now on full display in the Republican Party primary as this candidate and that candidate compete to appease that sizeable segment of the GOP electorate who wants to have its prejudices pandered to.

That’s why these people need an “Enemies List” to identify those individuals and groups against whom they want to declare war.

Lee A. Daniels is a journalist based in New York City.