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.
@ Paradoxy
Eid-al-Adha
Commemorates Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son. The traditional way of celebrating (in our circle at least) is to pinch one third of your Muslim friends’ chips (seriously, that’s the rule).
I am very worried about the Americans and about the rest of the world.
Trump has no empathy and no integrity. Instead of calling him out on the egocentric remarks about 9/11 in the past while he plays the “humble citizen” today, he gets a boost in the polls because Hillary fainted.
I lose faith in humanity everyday.
RE: Eid al-Adha, I saw some PSA-type posts on social media last week informing people of this holiday so that they wouldn’t think their Muslim neighbors are celebrating anything to do with 9/11.
I just hope that more people hear about it. : /
Muslim people (or even people who LOOK Muslim by American Stereotype Standard) have had enough shit to deal with.
@kupo and =8)-DX
Ah, sorry you are correct. That was an overbroad generalization.
I don’t, however, think the spirit of what I said (or was trying to say at least) was wrong. Isn’t there truth to the saying “a [person] is known by the company [they] keep”? Bernie, Hillary or any candidate in recent memory don’t have the support from neo-Nazis, anti-LGBTQ hate groups, anti-women hate groups, etc, etc that Trump “enjoys”.
Some of my friends have been nervous wrecks since the November attacks. They’re afraid to go outside because the police cracks down on Muslims like never before. Now some idiots even call on suspicions that their neighbors might be terrorists, for every goddamn stupid reason imaginable. 8 or 9 months ago, one guy had the police break down his door and wreck his apartment because… he shaved. That’s right. His neighbor told the police that he shaved to “hide his extremist views”. Worse, they made off with his white cane, because apparently it counts as a weapon, and the dude “couldn’t prove he’s blind”.
Oh yeah and now’s a bad time to open a kebab place in France. They “search” them, repeatedly. They break down your doors even if you provide the keys. They beat you up even if you comply.
And it just gets worse with every new attack.
@All That Migging and Towing
Your bedfellows are;
Nazis, sexists and racists.
“You make it sound bad.”
“Bigotry is fine.”
Says the white fascist nazi.
“We have good points too.”
I’m taking odds on whether All That Migging And Towing is in fact Mick Dash who’s decided to put on a new skin instead of having to deal with the questions his old one’s being faced with.
@personalpest
Xhellili is a Serbian name. Not exactly a region of the world known to have great relations between Christians and Muslims.
@Scildfreja
If that’s so, then shame, I thought we were getting a three for one deal in trolls.
@All About That Bass
Riiight…
Cos martyrs can’t be bigoted? Cos the opposite of hatred is sacrifice?
1)Don’t believe in categorical evil
2)Commonness ain’t a defense
They can exist, and I can call them deplorable
Besides, dontcha know that rights don’t exist!?
@Axe, I’ll put you down for a fiver on “the same” by way of the whole rights-not-existing argument.
It’s too bad if you don’t like it, ’cause rights don’t exist
😮
@All That Migging and Towing
#NotAllAssholes?
I also know a number of bigoted people who are otherwise perfectly nice … to people who are not members of the group(s) against which they are prejudiced. If you are white, straight, and male, most bigots will not have a problem with you and will treat you with kindness.
Here’s the thing: a person is only kind if they are kind to everyone. Being kind to a favored group only is not really kindness. It’s favoritism. Favoritism looks fantastic when one is on the right side of it, but it’s horrific from the business end. The fact that you can’t see (or maybe can’t be bothered to care about) this shows that you are massively privileged and completely unaware of it.
Nice elision there. Are you aware that you made it, and did it purposefully to be duplicitous? Or are you unaware and just an idiot? Asking for a friend.
Defending bigots for their bigotry really shows what kind of person you are, mig.
@WWTH:
Of course, the guy’s a raging egomaniac.
That said: whether it was intentional or not – it’s enabling the worst kind of behavior in others. In fact, one could argue that it being unintentional is worse because it indicates a lack of consideration when it comes to the effects of your actions. Maybe it’s just me, but hearing intention used as some kind of shield has become wearying. No one is psychic and if you espouse your views badly, it’s not everyone else’s fault for reacting negatively – and doing so suggests an inability to think before speaking.
@Paradoxy:
I still remember, a little after 9/11 occurred and I was at an airport, when several individuals I was standing close by were whispering of their dread upon seeing a Sikh man – completely unaware of the difference between both them and Muslims. Doesn’t matter that he was wearing a business suit and that his head-wrap looked nothing like what a more traditional Muslim might wear, people looked at him like he was going to set off a bomb.
And that is why I think the whole “there’s no such thing as Islamophobia” sentiment is bullshit…
Ooh I only just saw the troll.
Dude, where did you see “far-left” exactly ? I’m really curious where you got that.
@Policy of Madness:
Thanks for saying it.
There’s nothing that’s quite as intellectually lazy, if not just cowardly, than to act as if someone behaving nicely somehow negates their bigotry and the effects of it thereof – that it’s somehow “mean” to not just ignore their heinous attitudes because they…are pleasant to people they like? As if all the things they say about “darkies” and “sand n***ers” are just harmless quirks or something, than coming from the same rationale that caused so much oppression in the past towards the marginalized. Last I checked, paternalistic racism isn’t any more agreeable than outright hate because it still comes down to treating non-whites like lessers.
It kind of goes to show that the biggest obstacle to beneficial progress is compartmentalization: this notion that bigotry is only an issue when people aren’t being nice about it but otherwise forgivable when it is, is what further enables people to think they’re completely decent people while still holding views no decent person would have.
http://cdn.meme.am/instances/67007738.jpg
@Scildreja, Axe
I didn’t fucking say that rights don’t exist, so where the hell are you getting this from? In fact, considering that I blatantly said that some people have the right to exist while being racist, I still have no fucking clue where you are getting this from. Is this some kind of inside joke?
@Policy of Madness
What elision are you talking about? Can you explain it, or are you just making baseless claims against me? I could just yelp “logical fallacy!” at someone would they make a stupid claim, but then go all “I don’t have to prove that’s a fallacy because you’re too stupid” to someone.
@Scildfreja
Drat! Hoist by mine own petard
@PoM
All the preach!
“deplorable”
#notallbigots
I have no other real responses to this guy except laughter. I’ll leave that for the rest of you.
A trump presidency is the very worst thing that could happen to men. Was watching him go on and on about how the problem with sexual assault/rape cases is that ‘enough men don’t get convicted.’ His line of thinking is very much in line with ‘affirmative consent’, a law that strips men of presumption of innocence and due process – that ultimately ends with men getting convicted on a woman’s accusation alone. Now we all know that both men and women lie for purposes of revenge. This is what scares me to death about trump. He’s a TRADCON – which translates into more death and suffering for men at women’s behest.
As I’m sure you’re well aware, I subscribe to the MGTOW mindset and have no issues with feminists. Feminists have no power over those of the MGTOW mindset – for obvious reasons – so there’s no reason for MGTOW to fear feminists. People often confuse MGTOWs with MRAs. MGTOWs enjoy the benefits that feminism has brought to men and MRAs typically hate feminists due to the loss of traditionalism. Yes – you will find some crossover – but the majority of men benefit from feminism. Whether or not they see it that way is a different matter entirely.
Feminists got women out from behind TV and into the workforce paying taxes and working. This is good for men because it takes the burden of financial maintenance of society off of men’s shoulders and distributes it equally to women. More needs to be done to get women out of their comfortable offices and into infrastructure maintenance – a place where our misandric society has doomed men to toil.
With feminism has come the collapse of marriage, birth rates and traditionalism (sometimes referred to as TRADCON in MGTOW parlance). Marriage from a traditional standpoint is men taking care of women financially and sacrificing their lives on women’s behalf through war and sinking ships. Feminism has freed men from this deeply anti-male, sexist slavery and male disposability and has worked tirelessly to end TRADCON. Millions of men in the future will not know, thanks to feminism, the utter life annihilation of past and present men wrought through anti-male sexist alimony, asset division, child support and civil suit payouts following false accusations. The end to marriage is of primary importance to men and feminism has seen to it that marriage will die a long overdue and well deserved death. The death of marriage is occurring rapidly and globally. Men should be on their knees thanking feminists for this somewhat hidden, but otherwise obvious blessing.
We may even soon see the end to male-only conscription – the most man hating, anti-male sexist laws ever conceived – all thanks to feminism. Now, more and more, women will have to fight and die for their own rights rather than relying on men’s deaths for their rights and privileges over men. This is all thanks to feminism.
I could go on and on about all of the ways feminism is helping to end anti-male sexism. MGTOW make fun of feminism for their hypocrisy and double standards – that’s all. MGTOW frequently express anger and what appears as misogyny for this reason. What they’re really doing is expressing their hatred of TRADCONS and radical feminists for their hypocrisy and double standards. MGTOWs and feminists have far more in common than many think.
I personally wouldn’t date a feminist if she displayed in the slightest manner the hypocrisy and double standards with which feminism is fraught. Being of the MGTOW mindset, I’d also NEVER give a woman the legal or financial power to destroy my life through an outdated, arcane, defunct institution like marriage. Some would consider that last sentence misogyny, because now days, anything non-gynocentric is considered misogyny – effectively destroying the power and meaning of the word – and further reinforcing the double standards and hypocrisy so profoundly self-evident within the modern feminist mindset.
More and more, you’ll see both MGTOWs and MRAs coming fully in line with all I wrote above. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Trump cannot become president of the United States. He spells the wretched, life destroying continuation of male disposability and cultural misandry.
I’m voting for Hillary. Through her presidency will come a forwarding of true feminist goals and an end to the many, many anti-male sexist laws and policies. I’m with ->HER.
Another MIGtroll that may or may not be you.
Ohhh my Gooood. They are everywhere.