No Reason to Rush Labeling the Orlando Shooting as Religiously Motivated

With life’s warmth yet lingering on the bodies of the victims in the Orlando shooting, the imminent U.S. general election has instilled the incident with weighty political connotations and made it a veritable battleground between the two major U.S. political parties’ candidates.

Three days have passed since the attack, but as further details slowly come to light in the media, the motives of shooter Omar Mateen have only become more nebulous.

In an interview, Mateen’s father has denied his son was mentally ill or that his actions were prompted by religious extremist ideology, and he instead linked his son’s behavior to anti-homosexual sentiment. Mateen’s ex-wife has also claimed he “wasn’t very religious,” seeking to shift the focus away from that subject.

Complicating the matter, many witnesses have established that Mateen frequented the Pulse gay nightclub he later attacked, and gay dating apps were also found on his phone.

However, according to the FBI, an eyewitness revealed that Mateen had watched videos of Anwar al-Awlaki, a top leader in al-Qaida’s Yemen branch; consequently, the influence of religious extremism cannot be ruled out in this case. The Islamic State has also claimed responsibility for the shooting via its Amaq news agency. Moreover, during a period when Mateen was placed under FBI investigation, he indicated he had been angered by co-workers’ derisive comments about his Muslim background. Such factors make it very difficult to confirm the motivations behind his crime or to give the incident an accurate classification.

President Barack Obama has done his utmost to avoid labeling the shooting a “terrorist” attack, calling it an “act of terror and an act of hate” in a televised national address on the afternoon of June 12 and referring to the incident as a case of “homegrown extremism” on the following day.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has taken a similarly cautious approach. In a speech, she referred to the incident as an example of action by “lone wolves,” and denied Mateen carried out the attack under direct orders from the Islamic State group. Meanwhile, her challenger, Republican candidate Donald Trump, went on Twitter immediately after the shooting to point fingers at Islamic extremist ideology, reiterating his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. He believes doubling down on immigration controls is a key component for putting domestic terrorism in check.

And so, with life’s warmth yet lingering on the bodies of the victims in the Orlando shooting, the imminent U.S. general election has instilled the incident with weighty political connotations and made it a veritable battleground between the two major U.S. political parties’ candidates. While much evidence has yet to be uncovered, both parties’ classifications of the incident have played out along the lines of their differing identity politics stances. Clinton has placed her sights on the issue of gun control, questioning how the FBI-investigated Mateen acquired multiple firearms, while Trump – or perhaps one should say the Republican Party backing him – has strongly opposed gun control and criticized the Obama administration for being too soft on Muslims.

It should come as no surprise that the shooting and the underlying security issues will become an integral part of the election story throughout the coming months. With respect to the short term, the shock from the attack will provide Trump with a small uptick in support due to his hard-line stances on immigration and religion. However, as the voting blocs of both parties have tended to be relatively stable, how the general election will be shaped by these events in the long term is yet to be seen, and moderate votes will be the key that unlocks each candidate’s path to victory. But if the shooting is confirmed to be a “terrorist” incident, Clinton will be put on the back foot when it comes to the anti-terrorism debate, and the death of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state will become an even more vulnerable point of attack for her opponents.