Nativists Are Great! Except When They Aren't, at All.   As one
of the "sensible" conservatives on The New York Times' editorial
page, Ross Douthat has a habit of using his column to provide a
thin veneer of respectability to otherwise ugly ideas. Riffing
off of the Cordoba House controversy, Douthat relies on the
country's past experiences with unfamiliar immigrants to endorse
nativism and xenophobia as a way of pushing immigrants toward
greater assimilation.  But this is bad history; the nativists of
19th-century America weren't much interested in having "new
arrivals adapt to Anglo-Saxon culture," rather, the nativists of
mid-19th-century America wanted to keep immigrants off of
American shores. In its 1856 platform, the American Party --
otherwise known as the "Know-Nothing Party" -- pushed for the
mass expulsion of poor immigrants, and declared that "Americans
must rule America, and to this end native-born citizens should
be selected for all State, Federal, and municipal offices of
government employment,