Class cleavage, like sectional strife, triggered unifying nationalist nativism

Evidence

The fiery nationalisms of the fifties grew out of sectional cleavage; by the same centripetal principle, class cleavage could hardly fail in the eighties to produce a resurgence of nationalism. In both cases a baffled need for unity asserted itself in nativistic aggression. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 309

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanism is stated plainly: nativism is a centripetal compensation for internal cleavage — the manufactured external enemy directly answers the reader’s central question of how group solidarity is sustained by a constructed enemy born of internal division, not primordial identity.
• XREF: Core evidence for reader’s theoretical model — enemy-manufacture as unity strategy; connects to simmelian conflict theory and Coser’s functions of social conflict. — connects to: Official nationalism redirected resentment onto imported ethnic minorities — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 382; Civil War nationalism displaced nativism by supplying shared enmity and economic bonds. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 86; Nativism rises and falls with broader nationalist sentiment — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 28 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Official nationalism redirected resentment onto imported ethnic minorities #expands (0.78) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 382