OPINION:
Does Donald Trump want to ban all Muslims from entering the United States? Is he an Islamophobe? A bigot, a racist who is at odds with what the rest of American thinks — a new Monmouth poll says that 70 percent of registered voters oppose the ban.
The mainstream media would sure like you to believe so. The Washington Post wrote in an article Tuesday: “Trump has purposely and methodically made his proposed Muslim ban — and suspicion of American Muslims — a centerpiece of his nativist pitch to voters. … He also alleged that many American Muslims and mosques are knowingly protecting terrorists, that the United States should consider profiling Muslims and that President Obama may be in league with Islamist extremists.”
Last week, a lead editorial in The Post read: “An assault on our values: Mr. Trump responds to the Orlando shooting with a new round of bigotry and conspiracy-peddling.”
The Post’s words are meant to alarm, but if you’ve been listening to Mr. Trump’s words carefully — and haven’t been actively trying to paint him as a zealot — Mr. Trump’s immigration proposal has seemed to pivot since the Orlando shooting. It appears Mr. Trump is modifying his ban from a religious test, to a country-by-country basis, banning people from countries where Islamic terrorism exists and thrives.
This idea is actually not so radical at all — it was first proposed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the GOP primary. It also takes into consideration an ugly truth: That 99 percent of Muslims in Afghanistan believe in Sharia law, and immigration from Afghanistan to the U.S. has increased nearly five-fold in just one year.
“When I’m elected I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there’s a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies until we fully understand how to end these threats,” Mr. Trump said in his much-maligned foreign policy speech last week.
He didn’t drop the Muslim ban entirely, also saying: “I called for a ban after San Bernardino and was met with great scorn and anger. But many are saying that I was right to do so. And although the pause is temporary, we must find out what is going on. We have to do it.”
Byron York at the Washington Examiner noted the pivot and wrote, “Instead of dropping the Muslim ban, Trump grafted onto it a country-by-country addition.”
“It appears he might be making some sort of transition to a new Muslim proposal, to refine the original Muslim ban into a radical Islam ban, in an effort to appeal to a wider electorate while not losing primary voters,” Mr. York wrote. “The essence of governing is compromise, Trump might argue, and while he still believes in his original proposal, he knows there is substantial opposition. So here is the compromise: a ban on immigration from X countries and areas of the world with substantially radicalized populations.”
The New York Times picked up on the modification, writing of Mr. Trump’s Orlando speech: “It sounded much like his provocative proposal to keep Muslims from entering the country, but those listening closely noticed an important change. By proposing to bar people from certain regions rather than religions, Mr. Trump had avoided the sticky issue of testing someone’s faith.”
The Times then outlined why such a plan would be slow and complex, but one the president has the power to carry out.
Mr. Trump will need to clarify his position — whether his country-by-country ban is indeed a substitution for his all-out ban on Muslim immigrants. If it is, then it’s a position I can get behind, and one, I believe that can widen his base of support.
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