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.
@All That Migging and Towing,
That was an inside joke! We have a MGTOW here who is claiming that rights don’t exist, therefore feminism is a religion. Silly, huh! Don’t worry about it. Now, onto the actual comment.
It’s so nice when they front-load their confirmation bias like that. Makes things so much easier.
@Mig, just because you see a thing does not mean that the thing exists. Just because you don’t see a thing doesn’t mean that it does not exist. Confirmation bias makes it easier for people to perceive things that agree with their opinions, and harder for them to perceive things that don’t agree.
I’m interested, though, how do you define “far left”? Feminists? People who believe in global warming, maybe? People who believe in mixed economies or the welfare state?
Or, you know, you could just slap a label like “far left” on a diverse and varying set of ideals and political stances. There’s nothing black-and-white about that at all, I’m sure.
Difficulty in recognizing the motives of social opponents is a universal bias called the fundamental attribution bias. Everyone has it.
Kinda like dumping everyone you disagree with in a “far left” bucket, incidentally.
Care to make your thoughts a little more clear, perhaps?
“Dear Muslima, this is Migging and Towing…”
(Somewhat obscure reference, taht one; feel free to ask and I’ll clarify it)
You’re right! It’s not the end of the world. It is, however, bad, and double-bad if that person is running for the presidency of the United States, and getting more than infinitessimal support.
The progressive watchword is “We can be better.” Part of that is pointing out bigotry where it lies, and trying to fix it.
And Hitler liked puppies, and Nero loved to play the fiddle. Why do you bring it up?
Sure! Some humans are miserable. Humans are neither perfectly good nor evil. That a self-centred person raises their voice to point out an injustice doesn’t invalidate that injustice. That a racist bigot is soft spoken does not invalidate their racism. Humans can’t be reduced to a label. We recognize that you can criticize someone for their shitty behaviour while still giving that person a chance.
What was that about black and white thinking again?
Quit acting like someone is categorically evil for believing in social justice, you’re not entitled to a world where people like this don’t have the right to exist.
Whew.
Okay! Done.
Now, do you want to have an actual conversation, now that we’re done with the invective? We’d be happy to talk about the meaningful parts of this conversation with you, if you want. You are welcome here. Just don’t expect to be free from critique.
@Sinkable John
Oh, come on! You’ve got “pinko” in your name, and someone else around here has “communist” in their’s. Feminists and social justice type pokemon are almost always far leftists; you’ve got communists, socialist, marxists, anarchists, in all of your groups. Don’t tell me you’re not far-leftists, that’s just nonsense.
Hell, Mao Zedong was a supporter of women’s rights to divorce and work, and the Soviet Union allowed women to go to university! They were far leftists, you know.
Wow, so excitable. Like a yappy little dog, or an angry squirrel.
“Bigots are evil” and “I am entitled to a world where people like this don’t have a right to exist” are two separate statements that are not actually dependent on each other! One could be true without the other being true! They could both be true, or the first true and the second false, or the first false and the second true, or both false, because there is no logical connection between them at all!
You elide this by connecting them with a comma splice (attention: Sinkable John) and pretending that they are a single statement. An unsophisticated reader might be tempted into engaging with them on that level, which is not legit. Each should be engaged separately, on its own merits and not connected with the other. Its duplicitous to stack the deck in your favor by trying to trick someone into treating these statements like they are one statement. So again I ask: did you do this on purpose, to be duplicitous, or are you an idiot?
You rang?
I suppose I must also literally be a bonobo, right?
@Scildfreja
People who believe in global warming are not far leftists, given that in most countries it would seem that even conservatives believe in it (but not US republicans or libertarians). Welfare-statism is not far leftist, given that it would seem that welfare statism can’t feasibly exist outside of capitalist societies, because non-capitalist societies don’t generate enough wealth to properly redistribute it.
I am talking about socialists, communists, anarchists, and marxists, which obviously exist around here and in many social justice type places.
@All the President’s Men
I’ve got ‘Danger’ in my name. Obviously, that means I’m dangerous. Do I frighten you? If so, don’t worry. I’m just a little softie!
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/es.pokemon/images/b/b3/EP090_Nidoking_rosado.jpg
He takes care of the kids, and is confident in himself enough to experiment with different quill colors <3
Riiight. So, since apparently I need to point out the obvious, a great deal of the names used to post on here are gleefully taken from bullshit rhetoric. It’s stuff we’ve been called. We’ve claimed them.
Some of us may or may not be actual “far-leftists” – I happen to be one, but then again anyone living in Europe is on the far-left by american standards. It’s not extremely relevant. Look up intersectionality and you’ll get part of an answer. Look up brocialism and you’ll get another part. Figure this one out by yourself.
Thank you, @Mig! A tidy reply. Being Canadian, I’m happy to live in a mixed economy with both socialist and capitalist influences.
(Notice that socialism exists in pretty much every western country; the government is basically a big socialist exercise in group ownership and decision-making. The only question is how much socialism each country has going for it.)
That question is answered! I see you glided over the rest of my comment without reply, though. Are you happy to admit those things are true? There’s no shame in admitting the influence of bias in ones’ own decision making – it’s a strength. Knowing the source of ones’ perceptions is the first step in correcting them.
Some of the nicest people I know are jerks!
…said no one, ever.
@commie bonobo
It’s obvious that the second part is a joke, but it’s not so obvious that the first is, because it could be entirely true that you are a communist, but not true that you’re a monkey. Am I making any sense?
@Policy of Madness
I guess I’m an idiot, but that’s okay because I’m in good company around here!
Either way, I have to thank all of you for making my job as a MGTOW so much easier, as well as making my position so much more enticing. Had women never decided to start rebelling, men would have never had the “women are awesome” lenses pulled from their eyes and dashed on the ground. Because of you, the plight of male disposability has reached the ears of men, and is spreading like butter on toast.
This is just…ugh…no words! Fuck you Trump!
This is a picture of me. Just lazing about and waiting for hard working and bootstrapping male capitalist bonobos to come provide me with bonbons
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/51379000/jpg/_51379550_lukaya_5.jpg
And this is a picture of me.
http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/eng/files/2015/03/yellow-submarine.jpg
@Scildfreja
Do you have any literature on the other subjects, and are you willing to share? That would be most appreciated.
Facilitating you actually going your own way is one of the minor missions of this blog. Go on, now! Go your own way! Be free like a happy little bird! How will we ever miss you if you never fucking leave?
Complaining about women on the internet is a job now? How do you get that job? What is the application process? Are there a series of interviews or do you just have to say “women, ew!” or something along those lines?
What’s your position? That bigots aren’t so bad and that we’re far leftists? Cuz that’s all you’ve really said.
Rebelling against what? I have an answer, obviously. I just want to know what your answer would be.
How could you deem an entire gender either awesome or horrible? I know this is hard for you to understand, but women are people. There’s a whole grey area between putting us up on a pedestal and hating us.
Butter doesn’t always spread that well on toast. If the butter is slightly cool or the bread is too toasted, it doesn’t spread or melt. It just makes that really unpleasant scraping noise.
You probably should’ve gone for a butter spreading on a warm dinner roll or croissant analogy instead. Although the one you went with more accurately describes the progress you make spreading MGTOW across the land, so I guess you did a good job with this analogy after all. Go you!
@Hambeast
Being a bigot does not automatically make you a jerk, and being a supporter of Trump does not automatically make you a bigot. I mean, there are some of those “accelerationist” types or whatever who want to vote for Trump or support whatever person they think will speed up the contradictions within capitalism or whatever in order to bring about revolution; are they bigots, or just clueless?
I personally know numerous people who are very nice people in spite of being Trump supporters. I don’t support him, but I people who do and many of them are very nice people, they just seem a little confused. They just don’t like people who like Clinton, and many nonwhites are going to vote for Clinton. There’s nothing wrong with that, seeing that the feeling appears mutual.
http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/kelso-burn.jpg
Edit:
By definition, yes,it does. Maybe not to you , but most assuredly to someone.
Both.
… THOSE PESKY NONWHITES. How dare they vote for someone who seems to value what they have to say !
@Allentown, PA
MGTOW: destruction of property
@kupo
By definition, black people can be racist. Maybe not to you but most assuredly to someone.
That’s going to be your face when Trump whens the election.
@ all that migging…
You haven’t really defined what you mean by far left. However you’ve given some examples of what you think doesn’t count so I can address your point to a degree.
I don’t accept your contention that ‘almost all’ feminists are far left.
Obviously this is anecdotal to an extent but I suspect my experience can be extrapolated generally. Just about all the women I know are feminists. They have a wide variety of political views but they’re smart people so they recognise that women generally experience disadvantages that men don’t, and that’s something that should be redressed.
So for example one organisation I have dealings with that very much promotes a feminist agenda is a network of women in business. By definition they’re pretty capitalist in outlook and that’s not something that’s typically associated with far left ideology.
Similarly I know a lot of women in the military and related fields. That’s not exactly a hotbed of communism either.
You seem to view feminism as some extreme outlier, but it’s just the idea that women should be treated equally with men. That’s hardly radical so it’s perhaps unsurprising that many women (and indeed men) subscribe to that ideal.
Saying that over and over doesn’t make it so. How is hating someone for their race, gender, sexual orientation etc. not jerkish? As PoM pointed out before, just because a bigot is nice to you, doesn’t mean they are nice in general because they are only being nice to those in the demographics they don’t hate. I’ve had racist people be nice to be before just because I’m white. I still don’t think they’re nice people. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re a cishet white man and therefore not the one who stands to be actually harmed by bigotry.
They are both. If Trump became president and his term caused a bunch of war and economic disaster and if he enacted a slew of oppressive policies, who would be harmed most do you suppose? Marginalized people. That’s who. The types who just want Trump to win so they can see things burn tend to be overwhelmingly white and well off and are usually men. There’s a reason for that.
Callous indifference to the suffering of marginalized people is effectively the same as actively wishing harm upon them.
Way to show how clueless and privileged you are in every post you make.