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Trump’s proposal is no laughing matter

4 min read
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He’s got to be kidding, right?

Donald Trump can’t be serious.

The proposal the 2016 Republican presidential candidate put forward Monday that Muslims should be barred from entering America is enough to leave even the most jaded observers flabbergasted. It’s the kind of notion you would expect to arrive from some dank basement where the fringiest of the fringe dwell, not from the frontrunner for the presidential nomination of one of the United States’ two major political parties.

And it’s even worse than it looks at first glance. Trump would not just bar Muslims from settling in the United States. He would not allow any to visit on tourist or student visas, and, most stunningly, would block Muslims who are American citizens – American citizens - from re-entering their home country should they travel abroad.

On the one hand, there’s no chance anything resembling the stinkbomb Trump tossed in the room could become law. A religious test like that wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. It would also violate international laws and make the United States a pariah in every corner of the globe. And while there is the possibility Trump could end up becoming the GOP’s 2016 standard-bearer, the odds are enormously long he would be able to cobble together the electoral votes needed to win the White House, particularly after he’s offended women, Hispanics, people with disabilities and other large blocs of voters.

On the other hand, however, there’s the simple fact a leading American political figure with a substantial following served up one of the most crudely racist proposals since the days of Japanese internment camps. It’s frightening. All of Trump’s Republican opponents should forcefully reject it, as should all of his fellow countrymen.

Trump has been creeping inexorably toward this point, suggesting in recent weeks that mosques should be monitored and potentially closed; that American adherents of Islam should be registered in some sort of database and carry special identification; and that hordes of Muslims in Jersey City, N.J., cheered the fall of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, even though there’s no evidence such an event ever occurred. Unfortunately, some of Trump’s competitors have also been participants in this scapegoating, even if they’ve been doing so more demurely – Jeb Bush, for instance, said we should slam the door shut on Syrian refugees, but make an exception for Christians, and Ben Carson stated in a television interview that a Muslim should not be allowed to serve as president.

We are concerned the heightened levels of hysteria and fear-mongering in recent weeks will endanger the overwhelming majority of law-abiding, peaceful Muslims in this country. On Sunday, this newspaper reported on a Muslim couple who live in Canonsburg and have been the object of profane insults and harassment. One of them, it turns out, is also a U.S. Army veteran. In the days since the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., there have been reports elsewhere of mosques being vandalized, and other Muslims finding themselves on the receiving end of threats and intimidation.

We are a better country than this.

Lindsey Graham, the United States senator from South Carolina who is also running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination but finding little support, pointed out on CNN Tuesday divisive rhetoric coming from the likes of Trump does nothing to help us defeat radical Islamic terrorism.

”You know how you win this? You side with people in the faith who reject this ideology, which is 99 percent,” Graham said.

He added, “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

Well said.

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