Speaker 1: Following the San Bernardino attacks, fear mongering has hit unforeseen levels. Aside from the rhetoric being ignorant, it’s downright dangerous. For starters, American Muslims are being demonized. This week, Republican front-runner Donald Trump said he wants to band all Muslims from entering the US.
Donal Trump: Our country cannot be the victim of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad.
Speaker 1: Trump may be the loudest, but he’s certainly not the only one maligning Muslims.
Joe Walsh: There is a cancer in Islam. If they’re not going to learn to assimilate, I don’t want them in this country.
Jerry Falwell: If more good people had conceal carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed us.
Jeanine Pirro: We are living in dangerous times. Ladies and gentlemen, the jackals are at the door.
Speaker 1: These are just fringe thoughts right? Maybe not. A November poll found that 56% of Americans think that Islam is at odds with American values, which is leading to what some Muslim American leaders say is an uptick in hate crimes.
This week a severed pig’s head was left at a mosque in Philadelphia. That follows death threats, vandalisms, and shooting reports at other American mosques. A representative from the Council on American Islamic relations told CNN after the backlash from the Paris attacks, “I have never seen it like this. Not even after 9/11.”
This inflammatory rhetoric is playing into ISIS’ hands. Many see the anti-Muslim rhetoric as counter productive as it alienates Muslims in the West, exactly what ISIS wants. In his Oval Office address this week, Obama said that this is not a war on Islam. That is upsetting conservatives.
Fox News Anchor: In his entire remarks, he never once used the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”
MSNBC anchor: The refusal to call this for what it is, a war on radical Islam.
Jeb Bush: I would’ve used this opportunity, this speech, to be able to persuade people that we’re at war with Islamic radical terrorism.
Speaker 1: According to many, including Hillary Clinton, using that term furthers ISIS’ agenda by equating their actions with an entire religion.
Hillary Clinton: It helped to create this clash of civilizations that is actually a recruiting tool for ISIS and other radical jihadists.
Speaker 1: Even President George W. Bush avoided using the term “radical Islam” and said days after 9/11 that “Islam is peace.”
Finally, this is ISIS heavy rhetoric is ignoring another very pressing threat in the US: gun violence. So far in 2015, there have been more mass shootings than dates. Congress still has yet to take meaningful action to curve gun deaths. After the San Bernardino attacks, the Senate even rejected a measure that would’ve stopped people on the terrorist watch list from buying a gun.
When our leaders can’t even curb serious threats, what will it take for the national conversation to become productive and less hateful?
