Long read: Trump’s threats of violence against protestors reflect a racist order defined by nationalism in US history

This week, in reaction to the unfolding protests across the US in the wake of the killing of George Floyd during his arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, President Trump likened the unrest to ‘domestic terror’, and vowed to ‘dominate the streets’. Christopher Putney writes that Trump’s rhetoric is the latest expression of a racial order that has been ever-present in American political development, and always defined Blacks and other people of color as a threat to a white ethnonational identity