Dan Rather warns against 'extreme nationalism' of the Trump era while promoting new book

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Former CBS anchor Dan Rather warned against a trend toward "tribalism" on "Morning Joe" Thursday, and claimed a feeling of "extreme nationalism" has gripped the country under President Trump's administration.

"We have our differences and President Trump has found it to his... advantage to exploit those differences," he said.

"We’re in danger of sliding from extreme nationalism into tribalism. In our country, which is a new experiment in history — first time in history any people tried to be free... we're constantly trying to perfect it. It depends on [us] as a people, as a nation, that we agree on certain core values such as rule of law."

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Rather, who was promoting his new book, also said he remains optimistic about the possibility of national unity but accused Trump of purposely creating fear among Americans to push political talking points. He also said Trump exploited nostalgia as a way of rising to power.

"I am still optimistic... As the demographics of the country changed tremendously in the years following that elimination of the [immigration] quota system... this causes a lot of people to have fear and that’s what the Donald Trumps of the world are exploiting," he said.

"The fears of, listen, 'this is not the country that my father knew.' No, it wasn’t. And when your father was alive, it wasn’t the country that his father knew. But there’s no question that demographically, we’ve changed so dramatically, so quickly in the wake of the Immigration Reform Act of 1964 that it's led to a lot of fears of people. We’ve had divisions... along racial lines... it’s very important that we listen to one another."