If it wasn’t enough that Donald Trump has insulted Hispanics and women. And it still wasn’t enough when he mocked a reporter’s disability. Now Donald Trump has topped all of his hateful rhetoric by now urging a ban on all Muslims from entering the United States.
Not only is this offensive statement a clear undermining of the First Amendment, granting freedom of religion, but Trumps own supporting comments are confusing. He states,“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.”
This statement makes little sense and Trump also seems to have forgotten that almost every other highly publicized mass shooting this year was caused by a white male with zero ties to either Muslims or ISIS. Trump further cites a supposed Pew Research Study that said that he claims said that it shows most Muslims hate Americans. I was unable to find that research on the Pew website.
He also quotes statistics from the misleadingly named “Center for Security Policy. However, that “Center” is actually run by a man named Frank Gaffney. Gaffney worked in the Reagan administration and has been a known anti-islamic activist. Further, researchers at Georgetown University state that Gaffney has “a history of producing dubious claims and ‘studies’ about the threat of shariah, and was administered using an unreliable methodology.”
These same researchers also point out that the survey was not done with the proper scientific polling methods that ensure accurate results. In fact, the survey included false statistical data, leading questions, and was an opt-in style survey. What makes this study even more unreliable is that only 600 Muslims responded. I may not be an expert in math, but I am fairly sure that the views of 600 Muslims does not speak for the two billion members of the faith across the world.
I hate to pull out the comparison to Hitler rhetoric, but we have seen what happens when countries decide to ban or threaten to throw out entire religious populations. The most horrific part of all of this, is that Trump currently leads in the Republican polls by double digits. If we have any hope of saving this country, someone other than Trump must be our next President.
Featured image via Flickr. This image is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
