From The Atlantic
The Republican frontrunner’s latest proposal is a ban on Muslims entering the United States. Is anything off the table?
by Arsalan Iftikhar | December 8, 2015
Can you imagine a modern-day presidential candidate suggesting a national database of every African American living in the United States today? Or that every gay person around the country be required to carry special identification cards with them at all times? Or that America’s national immigration policy should entail a “total and complete shutdown” of further Jewish immigration to the United States? Or claiming that “thousands and thousands” of Mexicans were cheering during the 9/11 attacks, without any evidence to back his ridiculous claims?
Such a campaign would probably not last even a week.
But strangely enough, Donald Trump still maintains a double-digit lead over every other Republican presidential candidate. That’s because he has targeted such claims at one particular group.
Muslims.
Understanding Trump’s success requires taking a clear-eyed look at just how deeply rooted Islamophobia currently is within the Republican Party. ASeptember 2015 poll of registered Republicans in Iowa found that only 49 percent think that the religion of Islam should even be legal in the United States; with 30 percent saying it should be illegal altogether (and 21 percent not quite sure where they stand on Islam yet). Among Donald Trump supporters, there was almost an even split, with 38 percent thinking Islam should be allowed and 36 percent believing that Islam should be illegal altogether.
This logic would bar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Muhammad Ali, Dr. Oz, Dave Chappelle, Ice Cube, and Representatives Andre Carson and Keith Ellison from freely practicing their Islamic faith in a hypothetical Donald Trump America, along with millions of ordinary Muslims like me.
Donald Trump’s bout of Islamophobia began during a New Hampshire town-hall rally earlier this year. The first person to speak during the Q&A part of the town-hall proved yet again that Islamophobia was going to continue to be a Republican political football for many years to come. “We have a problem in this country called Muslims,” the Donald Trump supporter immediately said into the microphone in New Hampshire. “We know our current president is one … You know he’s not even an American … That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”
Instead of challenging these statements, Donald Trump simply responded, “We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things and you know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening and we’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.”
Now, this was not the first time that Donald Trump had publicly insinuated that Barack Obama was a Muslim. Back in 2011, Trump demanded that Obama release his long-form birth certificate, promising to send his own investigators to Hawaii to find out the truth about his birth. It helped advance the conspiracy theory that Obama was born in Kenya. “He doesn’t have a birth certificate…He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim,” Donald Trump said in 2011. “I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that.”
More recently, after the November 2015, Paris attacks, Donald Trump once again doubled-down on his Islamophobic rhetoric, suggesting a national “database” of all 7 million American Muslims and other measures that he admitted would have been “unthinkable” even a year ago.
