(^36) The last word
What the Know Nothings didn’t know
Alamy,^ Wikiped
ia^ (2 )in a country that seemed to be changing
around them.In the late 1840s, the United States was
being flooded with immigrants, in this case
from Ireland. The arrival of hundreds of
thousands of poor Irish Catholics led to a
rise of political groups in New York, Boston,
Baltimore, and Philadelphia convinced that
these immigrants could form a fifth col-
umn taking direction from the pope. Under
orders from Rome, the theory went, these
immigrants would undo American democ-
racy and steal jobs from hardworking native
citizens whose economic prospects were
hardly secure even in the best of times.
Though these groups had actual names, such
as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner,
their membership at first was guarded and
secretive. Asked about their views and politi-
cal plans, members would reply only, “I
know nothing.” The nickname was born.
Fringe movements need both oxygen and
fuel. The panic over an influx of Irish
Catholics was the oxygen, and the fuel was
provided by the breakup of one of the two
major American political parties, the Whigs,
after 1850. The Whig Party was never
a coherent coalition, and when it finally
cracked under the weight of North-South
division over slavery, the Know Nothings
suddenly emerged from the shadows to
become a viable political force.
Given that there were both Northern andSouthern contingents, the
Know Nothing movement
avoided the issue of slav-
ery. Instead, it directed the
passions of its supporters
toward laws against drink-
ing (the Irish were seen
as overly fond of drink;
they were Catholics; they
were in thrall to the pope;
hence alcohol was evil);
laws against immigra-
tion; laws in cities such as
Chicago banning any new
immigrants from munici-
pal jobs; laws to prevent immigrants from
attaining citizenship.
These were not marginal moves. At their
height, the Know Nothings, newly chris-
tened the Native American Party (long
before that connoted the original inhabitants
of North America), controlled the state legis-
latures and governorships of Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maine, and
California. They also held numerous seats in
state assemblies throughout the South, and
they sent to Congress more than 40 House
representatives and several senators. Most
of them supported stringent nativist, anti-
immigrant legislation; all emerged from
conspiratorial clubs that had spread theories
about possible papist aggression and plots
against the sovereignty of the United States.
In the Know Nothings’ grotesque accusa-
tions about Catholic priests and nuns
strangling babies and holding young women
against their will, it’s not hard to see an
early version of QAnon’s core obsession
with imagined globalist pedophiles. In 1856,
the name was shortened to the American
Party and its leaders nominated former
president Millard Fillmore as their candidate
for president under the slogan “Americans
Must Rule America.”
And then, almost as quickly as the Know
Nothings surged, they split apart. Formed
from scattered groups sharing a sensibility
and an animus into a loose national coali-
tion, the party was never tightly organized,Long before QAnon and today’s GOP, a political party grew up around conspiracy theories, said
Zachary Karabell in Politico.com. It turned out that wasn’t enough to hold together a national movement.The Know Nothings fed off resentment of immigrants, especially Irish Catholics.T
HE RISE OF QAnon
beliefs in Republican
politics has been treated
with a degree of shock: How
could a fringe internet con-
spiracy theory have worked its
way into the heart of a major
political party? The ideas
behind the QAnon movement
are lurid, about pedophilia
and Satan worship and a com-
ing violent “storm,” but the
impact is real: Many of the
pro-Trump Capitol insurrec-
tionists were QAnon support-
ers, as is at least one elected
Republican in Congress.
As tempting as it is to take the
rise of conspiracy theories as
a singular mark of a partisan
internet-fueled age, however,
there’s nothing particularly
modern or unique about what is happening
now. To the contrary. Conspiracy theories,
as they say, are as American as apple pie—as
are their entanglement with nativist politics.
Those currents have usually flowed beneath
the surface, but for a time in the middle
of the 19th century, they broke out into
the open, powering a major political
movement that dominated state govern-
ments, ensconced itself in the House of
Representatives and became a credible force
in presidential elections. The American
Party, popularly referred to as the “Know
Nothings,” may not have seized the White
House, but its story bears an uncanny
resemblance to what’s happening within
today’s Republican Party.
The sudden implosion of the Know
Nothings should also serve as a warning
to Republicans that the forces that have
propelled them to the apex of American
politics, helping Donald Trump win the
White House, can also tear them apart,
leaving barely a trace. The Know Nothings
today are a barely remembered footnote
to American history; if it continues on its
current path, today’s version could end up
much the same.
M
UCH LIKE QANON, the Know
Nothings started life as a secretive
cabal convinced that the country
was being controlled by an even more
secretive cabal—and much like Trump-era
Republicans, their anxieties were rooted