KALAMAZOO (WKZO) — A WMU professor claims that the debate over the U.S. response to ISIS, presidential politics and recent terrorist events are making anti-Muslim sentiments in the U.S. “Mainstream” but there are plenty of people stepping forward to challenge that notion.
With the number of both verbal and physical assaults on Muslims in the U.S. rising following Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from our borders and to create a registry of those who are already here, Democratic and Republican leaderss alike are calling for calm and condemning Trump as a demagogue who is stirring up hate to further his own ambitions.
The leading Republican Presidential candidate and billionaire who is funding his own campaign says it’s not about religion, it’s about safety.
But Benjamin franklin’s quote on that has been resurrected more than once…”Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Trump has managed to get most Republican leaders to agree with Hilary Clinton when it comes to Muslims and ISIS. They all say that what Trump has proposed is contrary to the U.S. Constitution, un-American and playing right into the hands of the terrorists.
And yet Dr. Nathan Tabor, a WMU visiting assistant professor of comparative religion says it’s the strident voices that are most often heard in both the old and new media. “There is an industry of people who trot themselves out as experts in terrorism or experts in American Muslim culture in society and they have figured out how to make a bunch of money essentially spouting anti-Muslim bigotry,”
Tabor says. “Frankly, it’s a lot of commentators that you see on mainstream news organizations. And they want people to say these bombastic things, these kinds of divisive things.”
He claims “The poor perception of Muslims or the anti-Muslim position or the Islamophobic position–whatever you want to call it–is mainstream,”
But President Obama disagrees, saying in his weekly address Saturday that most Americans get it. They are reaching out to Muslims they know to be good Americans and showing their support, and church officials are reaching out to Mosques to assure them that Freedom of Religion is alive and well in America.
That’s supported by the polls, both a new CBS/New York Times Poll and an NBC/Wall Street Journal Survey show that by two to one, Americans think Donald Trump’s proposals are un-American and contrary to the beliefs of the founding fathers.
Many are now taking Donald Trump seriously for the first time as they approach the first primaries and he remains on top of the polls. There could be a real devide between voters who call themselves Republicans, and the Party Leadership as they march to next Summer’s Convention.
They fear it could hurt Republican candidates at every level and result in a bloodbath next November.
