House Republicans and GOP
presidential candidates took
strong stands this week against
allowing Syrian refugees to enter
the U.S., with Donald Trump
making a series of incendiary
anti-Muslim statements that provoked
outrage from both liberals
and conservatives. The real estate
mogul, who remains far ahead
in Republican presidential polls,
said that to prevent a Paris-style
Islamist attack on American soil
he’d consider closing mosques
and creating a database to track
the country’s Muslims. “We’re
going to have to do certain things
that were frankly unthinkable a
year ago,” he said. Trump later
backtracked, insisting he’d been
talking about keeping mosques under surveillance, and creating a
database of Syrian refugees. The billionaire businessman also said
that, as president, he’d order security services to waterboard captured
terrorists, and repeated the disproved rumor that crowds of
Arab-Americans in New Jersey openly celebrated the felling of the
twin towers on 9/11. “It was on television, I saw it,” he told ABC’s
This Week. “I know it might not be politically correct for you to
talk about it, but there were people cheering as those buildings
came down.” No such TV images ever existed.
While Trump’s GOP rivals did not back his calls for policies targeting
Muslims, they did ramp up their rhetoric over the dangers
posed by Syrian refugees. Ben Carson compared vetting refugees
to protecting children from “rabid dogs.” Ted Cruz defended his
plan to accept only Christians; Chris Christie doubled down on his
argument that the U.S. shouldn’t accept any Syrian refugees at all,
even “orphans under the age of 5.” Meanwhile, 47 House Democrats
joined GOP lawmakers to pass a bill requiring each Syrian
refugee to be personally signed off by the FBI director, the Homeland
Security secretary, and the director of national intelligence.
The bill, which would signifi cantly delay the program to resettle up
to 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. in 2016, will now go to the
Senate. President Obama has promised to veto the legislation if it
reaches his desk, saying that refugees already “undergo the most
rigorous and thorough security screening of anyone.”
What the editorials said
“Donald Trump is a danger to the republic,” said the New York
Daily News. He is casually throwing around the possibility of steps
that would “trash the U.S. Constitution,” such as shutting down
or surveilling mosques and “forcing Muslims to carry ID cards.”
Preying on legitimate security fears in the wake of mass murder in
Paris, Trump is “dabbling with an abomination.”
But “the more he ratchets up the demented rhetoric, the higher his
polls go,” said the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger. Since the Paris attacks,
Trump’s support has increased nationally—up to 32 percent
in one poll—and in key primary states. Rival Republican candidates
may fear alienating the conservative base if they attack its
hero, but unless they denounce Trump’s infl ammatory rhetoric, the
GOP “risks being branded as the party of bigots.”
Trump comes from a long,
ugly tradition that gave us
Joseph McCarthy and George
Wallace, said The New York
Times. But Trump has a
21st-century advantage in
fomenting fear and hatred: He
spreads his lies on social media,
unfi ltered by reporters. In
addition to his demonstrably
false and libelous claim about
American Muslims celebrating
9/11, he tweeted last week
a bogus chart claiming that
81 percent of white murder
victims are killed by blacks; in
reality, it’s 15 percent. The media
should be more aggressive
in calling out his lies, racism,
and Islamophobia. “History
teaches that failing to hold a
demagogue to account is a dangerous act.”
What the columnists said
“The heart and soul of the Republican Party is in play right now,”
said Ed Rogers in WashingtonPost.com. There is more anger and
fear in the GOP “than I have ever seen,” stemming from “the
Obama-led American retreat from around the world,” the anemic
economy, ruptured race relations, and cultural unease. Trump is
ruthlessly tapping those sentiments, and Cruz is following close
behind with a similar message. “It’s turning into a race of hotheads
vs. everybody else.” Think how we Muslims feel, said Dean
Obeidallah in TheDailyBeast.com. During a rally “deep in the
heart of Dixie,” Trump said: “I want surveillance of these people.”
With that chilling phrase—“these people”—his message was clear:
Muslims are “not your fellow Americans.” The Donald’s presidential
run was entertaining at fi rst, but “the joke is over.”
Despite sparking an “avalanche of criticism,” Trump talks sense on
some issues, said Jonathan Tobin in CommentaryMagazine.com.
Monitoring mosques would be a “sober and focused approach” to
countering radicalization. And “the notion that refugees are potential
terror threats is not a fi gment of Trump’s fevered imagination.”
Actually, the chances of ISIS sneaking a terrorist into the U.S. as a
refugee are “minuscule,” said Peter Bergen in CNN.com. A lottery
decides who’s selected to apply. The vetting process takes about
two years and involves biometric scans, travel history checks, and
screenings by all the major government security agencies. And only
2 percent of those accepted are “military-age males” between 18
and 30. The real danger is the visa waiver program, which allows
citizens of countries like France and Belgium—where most of the
Paris attackers were from—to visit the U.S. without a visa.
“Republicans are in denial mode,” said Michael Gerson in The
Washington Post. With just two months until the fi rst primary,
many still refuse even to consider the prospect of Trump winning
the nomination. But what if he does? The belligerent businessman
wants to “spark trade wars with China and Mexico,” round up
and deport 11.5 million people, and turn the GOP “into an antiimmigrant
party.” When will sane and decent conservatives stand
up to this bully? We cannot form a coalition with the advocates of
“an increasingly raw and repugnant nativism.”
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