Fox News legal analyst accuses 'shameless' Trump of unleashing 'a torrent of hatred' not seen in decades

Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano this week published a scathing editorial in which he called out President Donald Trump for promoting hatred and division in the United States.

In the editorial, Napolitano recalls the divisions created by the Vietnam War, and he says that the hatred being stoked by Trump rivals the turbulent late 1960s. Napolitano argues that Trump's decision to tell four Democratic lawmakers to "go back" to their home countries despite being American citizens was a particularly divisive and racist comment.

"'Go back' is a rejection of the nation as a melting pot; a condemnation of one of America's founding values – E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one)," he writes. "It implicates a racial or nativist superiority: We were here before you; this is our land, not yours; get out. Nativist hatred is an implication of moral or even legal superiority that has no constitutional justification in American government."

Napolitano goes on to say that Trump's hate speech is protected by the Constitution -- but he also fears that the president will not be constrained by traditional social mores that shame such speech.

"When the hate speech comes from a shameless president, we have a problem," he said. "The problem is that presidential hatred produces division among people and destroys peaceful dialogue. When thousands of people at a Trump rally in North Carolina recently chanted, 'Send her back' referring to a congresswoman born in Somalia -- and Trump tweeted that the four congresswomen (including three born in the U.S.) should 'Go back' to where they came from -- the inescapable image was of a president trying to divide rather than unite."

Read the whole editorial here.