One of the questions that arises in the wake of yesterday’s pronouncement by Donald Drumpf that President Obama should resign because he hadn’t called the mass murder at Orlando Pulse “radical Islamic terrorism” is, why is this so important to Drumpf?[1] And the Republicans as a whole?
So, the answer should be obvious: it makes it much easier to demonize Muslims in general if we link them repeatedly to radical terrorism.
People like Drumpf can then take to the airwaves, or their Twitter accounts, and double down on prohibiting Muslims from entering into this country.
If you repeat something often enough, people will remember it.
“Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should.”
Everyone can remember that, whether it’s true or not. But with that slogan, people at least know that it’s an advertisement.
Not so with “Radical Islamic Terrorist.” And that’s what it is, an advertisement for the Republican’s preferred method of dealing with Islam: bomb the shit out of them.
The label, as has been noted with some irony, is exactly what the radical Jihadists – in contrast with so much of the rest of the Muslim world – actually want: a clear declaration of war between the Christian West and the Muslim East.
However, Obama is not the first or only President who doesn’t prefer the phrase “Radical Islamic Terrorist.” It turns out that George W. Bush didn’t prefer it either.
Yup. George W. Bush.
One of the things that I had promised the readers of this blog is to call out propaganda when I see it. So, this insistence on labeling acts like the Orlando Pulse massacre “Radical Islamic Terrorism” instead of, for example, “Radical Jihadist Terrorism” (which is actually more accurate), is to demonize Islam as a whole. It’s as simple as that.
[1] As Rachel Maddow pointed out, Drumpf thoroughly flunked the leadership test yesterday by making it all about him, including accepting “congratulations” for “predicting” the attack, and by doubling down on his ban against Muslims entering the United States, when Omar Mateen was born in New York City.
