In the United States, Serious Debate Is Now Out of the Question

Let’s take a quick glance into the future: It’s Friday, Jan. 20, 2017 and a pale winter sun shines over Washington, D.C. On the Capitol steps, America’s new president is taking the oath of office: “I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear…”

Donald Trump in the White House — at this point still just a nightmare vision that America and the rest of the world will hopefully be spared. But should it become reality, Dec. 2, 2015 will have played an important role. That was the day two young Muslims in San Bernardino, California, murdered 14 people — a day of rage and fear in America. And Donald John Trump happens to be the candidate favored by the enraged and fearful voters in America.

It still hasn’t been explained beyond a reasonable doubt why Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik became terrorists and murderers. They obviously saw themselves as soldiers in the Islamic State group’s terrorist militia and their crime was just as obviously carefully planned. In that respect, the U.S. security apparatus has good reason to be worried. There are probably many radicalized Muslims in America yet to be discovered who would rather lead their jihad at home than in Syria or Iraq. People whose Constitution gives them practically unlimited rights to stock up on as many guns and as much ammunition as they want. Two jihadis in San Bernardino.

Had there been such a massacre in any other Western nation it would have touched off a serious debate: Is it prudent in this age of global terrorism to offer rapid-fire weapons for sale on every street corner? Should we really be saving terrorists the trouble of having to procure their tools of murder in secret and illegally, i.e., in ways that might make them more visible to the police? And what could a nation, a society, do in order to get peaceful Muslims to join an alliance against the extremists instead of engaging in things that marginalize them and drive them into their arms?

Millions of People Are Classified as Terrorism Suspects

To any sensible person, the answers are as clear as the legislative and political consequences that must be drawn. But this debate is no longer possible to have in the United States. The gun lobby and the politicians who get funding from it for their political campaigns aren’t softened even in the face of the school kids and parishioners who were slaughtered. Their stubborn, grotesque argument now is the killings would never have happened had the victims gone to their Christmas party armed.

So those who elevated this foolish logic to a political platform are now having a sham debate. Instead of discussing a crazy obsession with guns, the Republican presidential candidates are talking about a problem with Muslims. Several million American citizens are abruptly branded “suspects.” One candidate suggests the nation needs a data bank of people who pray to Allah rather than to God; another wants to close down mosques. One suggestion is as repugnant and unconstitutional as the other.

Trump finally got around to trotting out the old lie about Muslims in New Jersey cheering as they watched the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapse on Sept. 11, 2001. That rabble-rousing propaganda began right after the Paris attacks and really boiled over when it was learned that it wasn’t a John Smith in California that carried out the San Bernardino shootings but a Syed Farook. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to predict that this election could become really disgusting.

Trump is such a successful candidate because he doesn’t give a damn about obeying the rules U.S. elections are supposed to follow. He insults people, he lies and his message is nothing but sheer anger. He offers the voters no answers to America’s problems; instead he offers something more comfortable: guilty scapegoats. If Americans begin to fear their Muslim neighbors, Trump will not hesitate to nourish that fear.

Another Republican, George W. Bush, visited a mosque shortly after the destruction on 9/11. “Islam is peace,” he told the nation. It was at least an attempt to prevent the poison of fear and distrust from spreading. Today, not a single Republican candidate would dare say the same thing in public because they fear Donald Trump and his enraged fans. Worse, perhaps none of them would even want to do so.