journalists be like "…we'll just leave this photo here, fam." pic.twitter.com/bQFCmPnDCB
— AJ Marechal (@ajmarechal) December 8, 2015WASHINGTON — Republican presidential hopeful and real estate mogul Donald Trump is calling for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” following deadly terror attacks involving Islamic extremists in California and France…. “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension,” Trump said in a statement emailed to reporters on Monday…. “Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” he continued…. Trump’s call to bar Muslim immigration into the U.S. is just the latest in a series of anti-Islamic statements. He previously suggested shuttering certain mosques in the U.S. and claimed he saw footage of American Muslims cheering after the 9/11 attacks — footage that no television network has been able to dig up.
I have no desire to provide Donald Trump with more attention or column inches. The only reason I feel compelled to address his latest foray into assholery (is that even a word??) is because of the hypocrisy and double standard his proposal to bar entrance into the U.S. to all Muslims represents. That appeals to Islamophobia seem to be gaining traction among Republican primary voters is distressing enough. That a demagogue such as Trump has decided to exploit such ignorance and hatred is truly disturbing in the tone and example it sets.
Let’s take Trump’s proposal at face value, if only for the sake of argument. So he wants to bar Muslims due to “horrendous attacks” committed “by people that believe only in Jihad.” Fair enough, but if we’re going to talk about groups who represent a clear and present (and actual) terrorist danger to the Homeland, shouldn’t we be honest enough to deal with the group posing the biggest threat? No, it’s not Muslims of any flavor; it’s Conservative White Christian males. Shh…if you tilt you head just right, you can hear the demands for decisive action against terrorists enforced silence.
If we’re to consider banning Muslims from entering the U.S. because we fear they might bring their own special brand of violent jihad to our shores, it would stand to reason that we ban the group which represents an actual clear and present danger from their version of Christian jihad. Far more Americans have been killed on U.S. soil by terrorists who look like you and me than by attacks conducted by swarthy, wild-eyed Islamofascists. Ah, but here’s the kicker, though: White folks by definition can’t be terrorists. Though they might shoot up Jewish community centers or Planned Parenthood Clinics or day care centers or malls or movie theaters or schools or…well, you get the idea…they’re not terrorists. They’re “misunderstood loners” with “anger control issues.”
Um, Dylann Roof & Robert Dear weren't #SyrianRefugees. They killed many Americans. @OutnumberedFNC
— Chico Delainky (@ChicoDelainky) December 8, 2015
According to Public Policy Polling, which has regularly polled voters on their attitudes toward Muslims, a significant portion of GOP primary voters in North Carolina believe Islam should be outright illegal in the United States.
It’s not a stretch to hold to the belief that those who fear Muslims and believe Islam should be illegal fall mostly into the “Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11” camp. What these bigots and haters refuse to recognize is that hatred and violence are no more sanctioned by the Quran than it is by the Bible. It fascinates me that so many Americans are willing to lump all Muslims together as “terrorists,” when the vast majority of domestic terror attacks are undertaken by Conservative White Christian males.
Of course, it’s much more difficult to label and stigmatize those who look like you, eh? That hits a little too close to home for some White folks, who are deeply in denial about the truth that domestic terrorists aren’t uniformly (or even mostly) swarthy, wild-eyed Islamofascists. They look like you and me…which is a reality some Americans are simply unprepared to process on ANY level.
Then there’s this problem that’s been ignored while good, God-fearing White patriots like Donald Trump are obsessing over “Islamic terrorism”: What do you do when the Muslims who do commit terrorist attacks on American soil are…wait for it…American citizens?
Syed Farook, one of the suspected shooters in last week’s attack in San Bernardino, California, was an American citizen. The other suspect is his wife, Tashfeen Malik, who reportedly pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State on social media. Malik entered the U.S. on a K-1 “fianceé visa.”
Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, the shooter who allegedly killed four Marines earlier this year in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was also a naturalized U.S. citizen.
As American citizens, the San Bernardino terrorists couldn’t simply be deported. By granting them citizenship, we the Sheeple accepted them as one of us, with the same rights that accrue to us good, God-fearing White Christians. You can blame the attack on their ethnicity or religion (which would be WAY wrong, but whatever….), but the truth is that they were like us- American.
While too many are quick to denounce the above attacks as terrorism (which is, in fact, what they are), they refuse to recognize that White men who shoot up Planned Parenthood clinics, day care centers, yadayadayada are also terrorists. Of course, it’s easier for demagogues like Trump to demonize Muslims- most aren’t Caucasian and they practice a religion that scares those who can’t be bothered to understand Islam.
“Heil Donald Trump - THE ULTIMATE SAVIOR.”
That’s what Andrew Anglin, publisher of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, had to say in response to Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
“Finally: someone speaks sense,” Anglin wrote, pasting Trump’s new proposal under the headline “Glorious Leader Calls For Complete Ban on All Moslems.”
“Make America White Again!” his post concludes.
When a politician’s message appeals primarily to racists, bigots, religious zealots, and those who allow their darker angels free reign, you’d hope they have the self-awareness to recognize that what they’re doing is destructive and wrong. Then again, Donald Trump seems to listen to no one BUT his darker angels.
Come on, America! We’re better than this. We didn’t get to be the world’s preeminent economic and military power by fearing what we can’t be bothered to understand. We didn’t remake the world in our image by caving to hatred, ignorance, and fear of The Other. We didn’t change the world by trashing our Constitution and persecuting people because of their religion and ethnicity. And we sure as Hell aren’t going to remain a country which guarantees freedom of religion and speech if we allow despots and demagogues like Donald Trump to believe they’re Presidential timbre.
Don’t you think we deserve better?
