Two recent opinion pieces in the New York Times, one by a veteran reporter turned columnist, another by a novelist in the Sunday magazine, launched viciously hard-left attacks on Republicans on the issues of immigration and refugees. Timothy Egan's Friday online column, "Donald Trump's Police State," went so far as to compare Republican attendees at a Trump rally to "rabid brown shirts in Dockers" and that his deportation proposals "would prompt a million Hispanic Anne Franks -- people hiding in the attics and basements of Donald Trump’s America." Meanwhile, novelist Laila Lalami compared ISIS's rhetoric to that of President George W. Bush:
Egan, liberal Times reporter turned hard-left NYT columnist, describies the plot of an alternative-history novel where "crypto-fascist" Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin Roosevelt and creates a hostile environment for American Jews:
Of course, it could never happen here. It’s a novel, silly boy -- one of late-stage Roth’s better efforts. Made-up stuff. That’s what I’ve always thought. But over the last three months, in listening to plans of the Republican presidential front-runner and the views of his increasingly thuggish followers, I’m starting to have some dark fears should Donald Trump become president.
Take him at his word -- albeit, a worthless thing given his propensity for telling outright lies and not backing down when called on them -- Donald Trump’s reign would be a police state. He has now outlined a series of measures that would make the United States an authoritarian nightmare. Trump is no longer entertaining, or diversionary. He’s a billionaire brute, his bluster getting more ominous by the day.
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Let’s start with his most far-reaching crush of cruelty, the Trump promise to create a huge “deportation force” to storm into homes, churches, schools and businesses and round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants. In doing so, he would need an army of agents to go door-to-door, breaking up families, and snagging many citizens caught up the in the mass sweeps.
As his jackbooted minions grab legal Americans (the children born in this country, citizens per the 14th amendment) and separate them from their illegal parents, he will place them -- where? In foster homes? In detention centers? In concentration camps?
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Let’s do the math: Trump promises to arrest, sort, and deport 11 million people -- a number more than 25 percent higher than the entire population of New York City. This from the nominal leader of a party that doesn’t think government can do anything well. In practice, (imagine the viral videos) the new operation would prompt a million Hispanic Anne Franks -- people hiding in the attics and basements of Donald Trump’s America.
Of course, many of the same liberals who quail in horror at Trump point approvingly to Australian's gun confiscation, which would involve a door-by-door search that would junk American's constitutional rights.
Egan even tried to lump the pro-life movement into that same Trump-style "police state by smearing Mike Huckabee.
To further clamp down in this land of the formerly free, Trump could borrow a few police state ideas from his fellow Republican presidential candidates. Mike Huckabee has suggested using federal agents to invade doctors’ offices and homes, physically preventing women from ending a pregnancy.
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These rallies are scary spectacles of rabid brown shirts in Dockers. His followers cheer while others pummel protesters, or spit on them. A few days ago in Alabama, a black protester was punched and kicked by his supporters. Trump suggested the man had it coming.
If Egan thinks that "thuggery" at political rallies are an exclusive province of Trump followers, he obvuiosly missed the liberal assaults leveled against conservatives at Obama-care town halls during the summer of 2009, as documented by Mary Katharine Ham in The Weekly Standard.
The November 29 edition of the New York Times Magazine also featured an over-the-top essay by novelist Laila Lalami, "My Life as a Muslim in the West's 'Gray Zone.'" The term is used by the terrorist Islamic group ISIS to identify lukewarm Muslims who have neither joined ISIS nor its "crusader" enemies in the West. Lalami compared ISIS's rhetoric to that of President George W. Bush:
Most of the time, gray lives go unnoticed in America. Other times, especially when people are scared, gray lives become targets. Hate crimes against Muslims spike after every major terrorist attack. But rather than stigmatize this hate, politicians and pundits often stoke it with fiery rhetoric, further diminishing the gray zone. Every time the gray zone recedes, ISIS gains ground.
The language that ISIS uses may be new, but the message is not. When President George W. Bush spoke to a joint session of Congress after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, he declared, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” It was a decisive threat, and it worked well for him in those early, confusing days, so he returned to it. “Either you are with us,” he said in 2002, “or you are with the enemy. There’s no in between.” This polarized thinking led to the United States invasion of Iraq, which led to the destabilization of the Middle East, which in turn led to the creation of ISIS.
Terrorist attacks affect all of us in the same way: We experience sorrow and anger at the loss of life. For Muslims, however, there is an additional layer of grief as we become subjects of suspicion. Muslims are called upon to condemn terrorism, but no matter how often or how loud or how clear the condemnations, the calls remain. Imagine if, after every mass shooting in a school or a movie theater in the United States, young white men in this country were told that they must publicly denounce gun violence. The reason this is not the case is that we presume each young white man to be solely responsible for his actions, whereas Muslims are held collectively responsible. To be a Muslim in the West is to be constantly on trial.
The most inflammatory lines were plucked out and highlighted in text boxes: "To be a Muslim in the West is to be constantly on trial." And "How do you explain to a child that she is not wanted in her own country."
The other day, my daughter said to me, “I want to be president.” She has been saying this a lot lately, usually the morning after a presidential debate, when our breakfast-table conversation veers toward the elections. My daughter is 12. She plays the violin and the guitar; she loves math and history; she’s quick-witted and sharp-tongued and above all she’s very kind to others. “I’d vote for you,” I told her. And then I looked away, because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that half the people in this country -- in her country -- say they would not vote for a Muslim presidential candidate.
For perspective, those surveys show similar figures are shown for atheists.
Right now, my daughter still has the innocence and ambition that are the natural attributes of the young. But what will happen when she comes of age and starts to realize that her life, like mine, is constantly under question? How do you explain to a child that she is not wanted in her own country?....
Oddly for someone who thinks Muslims are unwanted in America, Lalami wants very much to bring more in in the form of Syrian refugees. She signed a letter published by the hard-left Nation magazine quoting words incised on the Statue of Liberty: "A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles."
