Did Donald Trump just say we should look into getting rid of Muslims, or terrorist training camps?
At a campaign appearance in New Hampshire, a man off-camera calls out to the Republican front-runner: “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. Our current President is one…”
In the video of the exchange, you can see the (entirely white) audience calmly sitting through this, some nodding appreciatively. The questioner goes on: “We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”
Here is Donald Trump’s response to this potpourri of conspiratorial bigotry. First: “A lot of people are saying that.” This is called validation— that is, not only recognizing the question, but confirming its correctness obliquely. Then: “We’re going to look into that.”
Finally — and ominously –Trump concludes: “We’re going to look into a lot of things.”
Some commentators, like New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, have attempted to play down the nasty implications of the exchange, arguing, for example, that Trump only meant he’d “look into” getting rid of “training camps,” not Muslims. Meanwhile, Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, insisted Trump was answering a question about training camps, not Muslims. But Lewandowski himself volunteered: “The media want to make this an issue about Obama, but it’s about him waging war on Christianity.”
Thank God for Freudian slips that clarify. See, Trump’s questioner began by saying, “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims.” He did not say “jihadists,” “terrorists,” “extremists,” or anything of the kind. He called our President a Muslim, which is not true; note, however, that he did not call Obama a Muslim and a terrorist, because it is safe to assume that in his mind, every Muslim is a terrorist.
A few weeks back, I wrote about anti-Muslim bigots trying to stop a Muslim cemetery in Collin County, Texas, on the grounds that it was merely a cover for a jihadist camp of some kind. The “training camps” conservatives are so riled up about are imaginary. They are just ordinary American Muslim institutions — a cemetery, in this case! — not unlike the institutions of any other religion. It doesn’t matter if Donald Trump said we should look into getting rid of Muslims, or terrorist training camps, because, to a worrying number of Americans, these appear to be the same.
They’ve learned this from people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who preaches that Muslims are either extremists or in denial, and Glenn Beck, who preaches that Muslims are either extremists or in denial, and so on.
Thursday night, the GOP front-runner validated this bigotry — without even the courtesy to add, in reference to the Muslims the questioner spoke of: “Some of them, I suppose, are good people.”
One wonders: Why don’t more Republican candidates condemn the extremists in their midst? Are they all extremists unable to condemn themselves? After all, the designated driver of the GOP clown car is not only an unapologetic anti-Muslim birther, he’s a misogynist, an anti-immigrant, anti-science bully, who for no extra charge harasses journalists, including GOP-friendly journalists.
Or, as Democrats would put it, Trump: a dream come true.
I’ve worked years in Muslim communities. When I was younger, and wetter behind the ears, I’d find myself surprised that points I made about Palestinians, or about Sunnis and Shi’as, would be taken out of context, and used to justify anti-Semitic or sectarian arguments. I learned that people in any kind of leadership position must be cautious with their language, because the door to bigotry is opened very easily.
It is closed with great difficulty. It’s harder to walk something back than not say it in the first place, because people have long memories. There’s a reason why it’s so hard for the Republican Party to reach so many women, so many Latinos, so many African-Americans and now, thanks to Jeb Bush, Asian-Americans.
You know what constituency includes all the above?
America’s Muslim population is small, but it is growing, especially in swing states, like Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Texas (where, if you add in Latinos, for example, you see less red and more purple.) We’ve been here longer than Trump’s family has. We are incredibly diverse, possibly the most ethnically diverse religious community in America. If we exist as a political entity, it’s because of the Donald Trumps of America, who have forced us to think of ourselves collectively.
In 2000, the American Muslim vote was split; possibly a majority voted for George W. Bush. Many American Muslims identified as social or fiscal conservatives. Many still do. But while George W. Bush was able to call Islam a religion of peace after 9/11, it’s impossible to imagine today’s Republican Party making any kind of positive gesture toward Muslims. That’s why, in 2008 and again in 2012, American Muslims swung “overwhelmingly” for Obama.
There was little room for us on the right then, and even less now.
But that’s fine. Come November of next year, we know there’s another party that would love to have our votes.