CNN host Anderson Cooper calls ‘Blood and Soil’ ‘complete bull'
Cooper was hosting a CNN panel about white supremacy when he took an aside and expressed his strong personal view.
By HAGAY HACOHEN
What is an American?” Asked Daily Beast reporter Matt Lewis during a CNN panel aired on Monday.“Is America a place basically for people who are white… or is it about an idea?”He was careful to note that while not all US President Donald Trump supporters believe the former idea, this is a discussion that is happening in American society today.The panel, hosted by Anderson Cooper, had to take a break at this stage, but Cooper made the point of saying that, in his opinion, the idea that only white people had shed blood in America and can claim this sort of kinship is “complete bull.”Senator John McCain (R-AZ) addressed the idea that white Americans enjoy a "blood kinship" to US soil during his Liberty medal acceptance speech on Monday evening.During his speech, McCain said that to abandon American ideals to be the ‘last best hope of Earth’ in favor of ‘half-baked nationalism’ is unpatriotic and that such notions belong in the ash heap of history.“We live in a land made of ideals,” said the Vietnam war veteran, “not blood and soil.”
Sen. John McCain called "half-baked nationalism" unpatriotic in a speech after receiving the Liberty medal. pic.twitter.com/jYrFvwVFds
The “Blood and Soil” slogan was coined by the Nazi regime to describe a specific idea that Germanic people have a spiritual and physical connection to German lands – a connection that non-White Germans or Jewish-German people couldn't be a part of, no matter what their feelings on the matter might be. The slogan re-surfaced in American politics after the Charlottesville protests, in which white supremacy activists marched with lit torches and chanted it alongside with “Whose streets? Our Streets!” and “Jews will not replace us!”