Quite the opposite actually. Once you have clearly separated the Inside from the Outside it becomes much easier to blame the Outside. You are making the implicit assumption of "without going too far". But once a racist succeeds in cutting off immigration their perspective on what is considered too far diverges quite sharply. Externalised aggression becomes easier, not more difficult, once the lines are drawn more sharply.
My US politics analogy is abortion. The Republican party in the US consistently has fought to try to restrict access to abortion, or try to do an end run around court rulings saying it can't be outlawed (i.e., by imposing difficult-to-meet "safety" standards on clinics to try to drive them out of business).
And this works for them because there's a small minority in the US -- small in terms of percentage of the population -- for whom banning abortion is the reason they get up in the morning, the thing they shout about from the time they wake up to the time they fall asleep, the thing they would put their lives on the line for, even in some cases kill people for, and they turn out in droves to vote for candidates who express sympathy with their position.
But if the Republican candidates ever did succeed, somehow, in banning abortion, well, they have access to the same polling data as everyone else, and they know that while a lot of Americans don't necessarily like abortion, any genuine ban would turn the very next election into a landslide targeted at overturning the ban and ending the political career of every single person who supported it.
So they end up walking a very fine line of talking about how much they'd like to ban abortion, but having to be very careful to not to ever succeed at banning abortion. Or they have to restrict their success to a local regulations which don't effectively end abortion, or to things they know will be swiftly overturned by courts. That way they get to go back to their rabid supporters and say "I'm with you and did my best, but those baby-killers won again" and get consistent guaranteed votes, but don't have to face the instant-political-death consequences that would occur if they actually succeeded.
Anti-immigration platforms seem to face a similar end, though perhaps on a longer time scale.
Your thoughts are ironic because you have a very uncompromising view of your 'opponents'.
> The Republican party in the US consistently has fought to try to restrict access to abortion
...or has consistently fought to have a more sane standard for the right to life than 'has the human life traveled through a vagina yet?' An unborn person at nine months has to be protected as much as a family pet, right?
People should have the freedom of choice in being pet owners, it's their right even, but there's a limit. And the limit when it comes to people is different because we don't own people. Not even parents do.
> And this works for them because there's a small minority in the US -- small in terms of percentage of the population
The pro-life position has slowly (slowly) been gaining popular support over the status quo (basically anything goes as long as the baby isn't born yet). There is broad consensus that abortions should be restricted in the third trimester (with the usual exceptions).
Do some people want to ban all abortions? Sure. But there's a lot of sane common ground here, too, if people actually wanted to solve problems instead of paint caricatures of each other.
Your thoughts are ironic because you have a very uncompromising view of your 'opponents'.
It is the simple truth that while many Americans say they dislike abortion, or want some types of restrictions on it, the primary driver is not those peoples' opinions, because they don't hold those opinions very strongly. The primary driver is a much, much smaller but almost unbelievably more vocal subset who take an absolute hard-line stance, turn out at every election, and treat it as essentially the only issue on the ballot.
Those are the ones Republican leaders are trying to appease without actually appeasing, because while they love the reliable automatic support on election day they know what would happen if those folks ever actually got their way.
I understand what you're saying. I was wondering if you understood what I was. I believe you don't.
We might disagree on the empirical question. It might surprise you that American legal code is largely to the left of the rest of the world. Most countries do not allow on-demand abortion with no gestational limit. It's not a hard-line right-wing stance to want to bring American case law in line with Italy, Hungary, or France.
Most countries do not allow on-demand abortion with no gestational limit
Well, the US doesn't allow that either, so I'm not sure what exactly you think your argument is.
Though to be perfectly honest I think historically-Catholic countries (y'know, like the ones you mentioned, and while we're at it let's add Ireland) could do with a bit of being dragged kicking and screaming in the direction of the 21st, or at least late 20th, century on this and other sex-related issues.
