There’s a rather telling detail in a piece in Politico on the reactions of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to the attacks on 9/11.
In a television interview only a few hours after the twin towers collapsed in flames, Trump managed to work in a strange little boast about his real-estate empire:
“40 Wall Street,” he said, referring to his 71-story building blocks away from the now-collapsed twin towers, “actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan … And now it’s the tallest.”
Trump will always be Trump, I guess.
But the Politico story does note that aside from this little bit of brand-building, Trump was actually rather restrained in his response that day, at least by normal Trumpian standards:
A decade and a half before pledging to “bomb the shit out of” ISIS and proposing a deportation force and a Muslim ban, Trump didn’t talk about retribution or leap to conclusions about who was responsible. In fact, he avoided identifying potential enemies—any terrorist organization or Muslims in general.
We live in what is, in many ways, a much uglier America today, and Trump has been one of the leading enablers of this ugliness.
As Mic noted in a post yesterday, Islamophobia is much worse today than it was on 9/11/2001, and hate crimes against Muslims are on the upswing.
Immediately after 9/11, there was a significant rise in anti-Muslim activity.According to the FBI, in 2001 anti-Islamic hate crimes spiked by 1,600 percent with 481 incidents. CAIR noted another surge in 2006 — the reason for it remains unclear. Another spike followed the Park51 controversy in 2010, in which New York City considered building a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero.
But the highest concentration of anti-Muslim crimes came at the end of 2015. According to CAIR’s latest report, 78 mosques were targeted for vandalism that year — more incidents than they had documented in any one year since they started tracking in 2009. Compare this to 2014, when CAIR only documented 22 similar incidents, or 2013, when they documented 20. The 2015 spike came after the attacks at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris and around the same time Donald Trump infamously proposed that the country should ban Muslims from entering until we “figure out what’s going on.”
Similarly, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that in 2014 while the rate of hate crimes overall had fallen compared with the previous year, hate crimes against Muslims saw a 14 percent increase.
Emphasis mine.
The vicious attacks against Muslims have continued apace this year. The latest: an attack on two Muslim mothers in Brooklyn last Thursday. The New York Daily News reports:
A bigoted Brooklyn woman launched a sickening attack on two Muslim women pushing their babies in strollers — punching them in the face and trying to pull off their hijabs, prosecutors said Friday.
Emirjeta Xhelili, 32, hurled Islamophobic insults as she pounced on the two victims near her Bath Beach home about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, authorities said.
“Get the f–k out of here,” Xhelili, 32, allegedly yelled at the pair, according to prosecutors. “Get the f–k out of America, b—–s.” …
Brooklyn prosecutors said her attack included an attempt to knock over a stroller carrying a 15-month-old baby.
Happily, the baby (and both mothers) are ok, and Xhelili was quickly arrested.
The alleged attacker is, of course, a Trump supporter. The Daily News notes that
Her vile social media musings include several bizarre tweets cheering the candidacy of Donald Trump.
“America is the ark of Noah,” one reads. “Trump’s gonna win.”
Such is life in America fifteen years after 9/11.
H/T — Raw Story/Liberaland for highlighting the Trump quote.
@POM Alas no; despite its amazing civil engineering heritage engineers in the UK are paid pretty poorly relative to the US, and socially are barely above ditch-diggers (which is what most people think we are). And yes, in some circumstances if we screw up people die (more often if we screw up our client has to pay a lot more than they otherwise would).
I’m cheerful today, though, as I had what I thought was a good interview Friday and am anxiously awaiting results.
Oh, lordy, I do love when some libertarian/Randian/whatever gets all “I HAVE A JOB AND YOU DON’T” on the internet. Especially when I read their frothings on my phone while I’m on on break at work.
Oh, wow! I got a response from a troll?? It’s my first time, Hee!
Weatherwax said
I really liked that line, too. Thanks, Nequam!
Lots of us like PTerry; I toyed with using Perdita Nitt as my handle for a while.
@ guest
You’d be properly appreciated in the Army. As any Royal Engineer will tell you, unlike every other branch of the service, it’s the individuals who are ‘Royal’ rather than the Regiment or Corps.
@ weatherwax & hambeast
@Alan never heard of John Peel, but I did that with Casey Kasem.
@ kupo
I was really surprised to find out he was Shaggy in Scooby Doo.
You ever have that thing where you hear the end of a song and you’re expecting a particular song next because you had it on a mix tape?
Wow, that was quite the meltdown back there.
I guess All That And A Bag of Chips had to go back to his electrical martyrdom job. 350 million worthless loafing parasites aren’t going to feed themselves, you know.
@Alan – I still get that, even though it’s been decades since I used to hang out by the radio with the tape recorder. We had annoying DJs that would yammer over the beginning and end of songs. After repeated listenings it became embedded in the music. (There was a TMI monologue at the end of “Thunder Island” that I STILL hear the ghost of to this day.)
@Buttercup
He got off the internet to go Hunting The Mammoth To Feed Us.
@Sinkable John – Ah, that explains why he was here, spear in hand.
@ Alan haha that’s awesome. But I’ve always done work that I can see the public benefit of, so at least for the time being it looks like I’m sticking with the railways, unless by some miracle I can get some more historic preservation work.
@ Kupo wow, that was an unexpected blast from the past. My best friend and I used to listen to Casey Kasem’s countdown.
@Alan & Buttercup Q., I get that quite a lot, yes!
The two worst recording problem-pieces I’ve got is one taken from a scratched LP and one copied from a string of someone elses, where the first copy was taken from the radio … being DJ’d by Jimmy the rapist Saville.
Ugh.
I have to say these migtroll threads have been a real treat to witness from the sidelines (even stealing the show from David’s blog at times, I feel guilty to say). But this may be the only thread I’ve gone back and read over a second time for the sheer, beautiful pricelessness of it. x’D This commentariat is like a wonderful gift. Thank you all for dealing with these life forms in a way that most of us haven’t the time/wit/endurance/awesomeness to.
Really though, the way they’re popping in lately takes me back to this video. I like to imagine every move to another room is a new blog post and that instead of one child there are 3 or 4.
@Sarity
To quote another troll :
How dare you, that’s ageist !!1!1
I think that little boy is more together than Mig, because all he did was fall on the floor and cry.
I always expect to hear the dialog from Natural Born Killers at the end of any song off the soundtrack. Also, back in the 2000s I had a sound card that had an option to record everything that’s playing through the speakers and I would use that to record music off CDs before I had a program that could rip them. My alert sound was set to Homer Simpson saying d’oh and I would usually catch it and start over, but there was one track where I missed it and so I came to expect “d’oh!” when listening to that song.
Someone needs to start a spinoff blog: Reasons My Troll Is Crying
Hey now, let’s not Tuneshame. I happen to like some of Nickelback’s songs, thankyouverymuch.
And I’m sure there are songs you like by bands you like that I don’t like.
I don’t know why you’re getting so hysterical over certain sound vibrations I like in my ear holes.
That meltdown was glorious. I went to the kitchen and got my bag of popcorn poofs (regular popcorn hulls wreak havoc in my teeth) and did the popcorn thing. No lie! And for breakfast at that. So worth it!
Anachronist’s post was completely awesome. I’m going to blockquote this part because of one of Miggy Troll’s rants:
This, as an ex minimum-wage retail slave always gets me. People that put down, or (sometimes) worse ignore minimum wage workers have mostly never done these jobs, or else they did and were so traumatized by them, they demonize them.
But when I think about it, these workers in these jobs make it possible for us to shop for ALL THE THINGS, full stop. They drive and unload the delivery trucks, they stock the shelves, they pick orders in warehouses, they do millions of transactions for huge companies every day. Without them, retail grinds to a crawl and the economy crumbles.
People who work in restaurants and fast food make it possible to eat on the go, or sit and savor foods that we probably wouldn’t have the time to prepare ourselves. I know I don’t keep the ingredients on hand to make pizza, burgers, tacos, fancy salads, stir-fry, kebabs, huge deli sandwiches and all of the other things I enjoy eating on a regular basis. I’d never have room in my pantry or fridge! Not to mention the time it would take to make all that from scratch.
Then there are the people who do the “jobs nobody else wants” which is usually said as if that makes them nothing.
Without farm workers, WE DON’T EAT. What’s more productive than that? Maybe the teachers that taught someone’s 29 year old ass from the age of 5 or so onward? We would all be nothing without them. You should go read that article that Guest linked, Miggy Troll, Superior Engineer Extraordinaire.
Sorry that got a bit ranty.
I’m torn between the call of the mig being tech support, or a teenager.
Tech support maybe makes sense for an EE with ~5-7 years experience making $27/hr in the US. An engineer doing engineering would normally make rather more.
Or a teen who thinks $27/hr is an unimaginably huge pile of money — more than triple what they made last summer.
Anyway, migs, if you’re actually several years out of college and getting offered $27/hr for engineering jobs (the kind you need a ring for), you should look for negotiation classes, perhaps given by the local chapter of the order of engineers, or a community college. And then look for a new job.
@ Sarity
That very video has, in fact, been linked here a number of times because of its aptness. Hey, what’s the point of throwing a tantrum if nobody sees it, right?
I’m a writer and a bartender. These are my job choices. That’s right, I dedicate myself, by my own choice, to jobs that aim at making people happy, at providing spaces for them to hang out and meet each other. I give people stories, then I listen to theirs as I pour them drinks. I write things that I want to feel empowering to those who read them. I kick entitled bastards and harassers like yourself out of the bar so those people can keep enjoying good drinks and good company in a safe environment.
I don’t even get paid. I’m unemployed as of right now, and most of my work is done voluntarily in a café-lecture. My writings were published in a pay-what-you-want journal that I worked my ass off with friends to write, edit, print, and spread. The proceeds, when there were any, went to printing the next issue.
You don’t pay for my welfare. First, because as I have stated upthread, I don’t live in the US, jackass. Second, because I don’t benefit from welfare in the first place.
My jobs are hard. They’re hard, unforgiving, and they don’t pay. I do them because I love them. Because people benefit from my work, in ways that you will never understand because you can’t quantify them with a dollar sign.
Don’t ever tell me again that I don’t contribute to society.
@kupo
Took me way too long to realize you meant the movie…
By the way, does anyone else think it’s a little odd that the engineer showed up in the 9/11 thread?
http://files.basekit.webhuset.no/webhuset2904/image/aefor911truth.png
I’ll try not to let it bother me, but my kneejerk reaction to the “I’ve got a job and you don’t!” boast is “Fuck you asshole, I’m looking!”
Our economy is kind of shit right now and companies *say* they don’t discriminate against those with disabilities but many do. Never mind that I need little to no accomodation due to the mild nature of my conditions (Asperger Syndrome and ADHD).
Point is, I really have to put a valorous effort into finding a job and people judging me (or anyone else) for being unemployed is a really shitty move! But then again, they are trolls and “empathy” is not in their dictionary.
@Axe: Uggghhh…9/11 conspiracy theorists–my favorite!
Jet fuel can’t melt welfare !