> The US used to stand for fairness, equality, and due process. We've allowed the worst of ourselves (fear of the other) to destroy the best of ourselves (openness, fairness, justice).

Where do you get this ahistorical mythical belief? When we were deporting millions of Hispanic people (citizens included) in the 30s, how just was that? Was it fair to upend their lives and send them to a foreign land?

When we let the Klan sweep over the Reconstruction south, was that just? Jim-Crow southern laws and their constituent sumptuary codes sure don't seem very open to me.

Fear of the other is deeply ingrained into the US. See the Japanese internment camps, see white flight post segregation, see the modern xenophobia aimed towards Russians.