Look as far back as 1800 with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, each thought the other was subservient to a foreign power. Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party (now the Democratic Party) thought Adams and his Federalist Party were monarchists and traitors to the American Revolution because they were pro-British and anti-French. The Federalists thought Jefferson’s pro-French party as atheists who would abolish private property. Republican called Federalists anti-democratic, Federalists said Republicans were against the Constitution. Each side felt the other was controlled by foreign regimes antithetical to America’s principles.
Immigration played a role and also tied to fears of control from abroad. Adams had raised the amount of years a foreigner had to live in the US before being naturalized as a citizen. The Federalist controlled Congress also gave him broad powers to deport immigrants, or “aliens” as they were known.
And sitting governments using laws against opponents? With the Sedition Act of 1798 Congress criminalized “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” critical of the government. Today Biden just asked social media to do it for him. Jefferson and his supporters were so against the Alien and Sedition Acts they were prepared resist them to the point of inciting the states to defy the government.
So there you have it, deja vu all over again. But that is one reason America is the greatest country on earth, we strongly disagree but somehow plow on to today, and likely for a long time ahead.
