O’Malley to Jorge Ramos: Trump’s Hate Speech Makes Him Good Know-Nothing Candidate

Jul 14, 2015
10:55 PM

Finally, there is a presidential candidate who basically spoke the truth about Donald Trump’s “rapists” and “criminals” comments from June 16. Here is what Martin O’Malley told Jorge Ramos earlier today:

For those keeping score at home, this is what you need to know about the Know-Nothing Party:

The Know-Nothing party was an outgrowth of the strong anti-immigrant and especially anti-Roman Catholic sentiment that started to manifest itself during the 1840s. A rising tide of immigrants, primarily Germans in the Midwest and Irish in the East, seemed to pose a threat to the economic and political security of native-born Protestant Americans. In 1849 the secret Order of the Star-Spangled Banner formed in New York City, and soon after lodges formed in nearly every other major American city.

Members, when asked about their nativist organizations, were supposed to reply that they knew nothing, hence the name. As its membership and importance grew in the 1850s, the group slowly shed its clandestine character and took the official name American Party. As a national political entity, it called for restrictions on immigration, the exclusion of the foreign-born from voting or holding public office in the United States, and for a 21-year residency requirement for citizenship.