Cathie Carmichael, a professor of European History at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, discusses the political unrest that plagued the Balkans on the eve of the First World War. Professor Carmichael took part in an international workshop organized by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, entitled, “Nationalism in the History of the Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence.”
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One thing I got out of this is that incipient nationalism could be not an affirmative statement but nullifying prospect to loyalties which seemed to be increasingly tenuous or personally harmful. So one asserted being of Italian heritage to escape demands of Empire. Initially, mouthing this new identity was an attempt to create a protected null space for the speaker.
Others, quite proactive, use nationalism, or other loyalty, to assassinate or do physical harm to others outside of any personal context; as your guest pointed out, this was common in the years up to WW I and in the intrawar years in Germany. Here asserting the identity motivates action against prevalent structures and loyalties. As we see presently in the US, a rather small group employing such tactics can have disproportionate impact to their numbers; as well, as we have seen evolving for decades, a growing part of the population is retreating into a null space where loyalties are not affirmed.
This leaves only global (for the State) loyalties to regain avowed connection–being patriotism and nationalism, the ground Trump is trying to command. Classic law and order: your protected, nullified space requires my control.