The writer is a journalist with over 30 years of experience
Hillary Clinton has rightly turned Trump’s populist slogan ‘Make America great again’ into ‘Make America hate again’! Trump is using the bully pulpit to spread conspiracy theories and hate against his opponents, TV anchors, Muslims, Mexicans and African Americans. And his fans are buying it. Because, according to statistics, there are at least 30 million American adults who cannot read. If Trump wins, it will prove that “even bigger part of the citizenry is politically illiterate,” warn pundits.
Eidul Azha and 9/11 coincide this year. With Trump’s outrageous lies that he saw “thousands” of Muslims celebrate while the World Trade Centre collapsed 15 years ago, American Muslims worry that their Eid celebrations may be mistaken as a provocation with Trump believers, including the provocateur-in-chief regularly inflaming anti-Muslim sentiments. Saying “sorry” is not the lingua franca of the flamboyantly conceited American. “I have no regrets,” insists the billionaire New York real estate tycoon, not once but many times when asked about his feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of Captain Humayun who died while saving the lives of fellow American soldiers in 2004. Sadly, most military families remained unmoved by Trump’s cruel treatment of the Khans.
“Where arrogance, acquisitiveness and the sowing of discord are not sins,” writes Michiko Kakutani, a columnist of The New York Times, “but attributes of leadership; a place where lies, contradictions and outrageous remarks spring up in such thickets that the sort of moral exhaustion associated with bad soap operas quickly threatens to ensue.” She is, of course, referring to Trump. Her voice is drowned out by thousands of Trump’s male, white, and poor supporters across America. They love him. He brings out the worst undercurrents of racism, nationalism, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiments in them. To the millions of gun-toting Americans, Trump hints at assassinating Hillary should she as president take away their 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.
Zillions (hope I am proven wrong) have cloned into Trump’s version of the ugly American that he has harvested over the last 14 months. His racist message has surfaced in schools and colleges where Trump’s ‘Mini-Me’s’ are telling their non-white classmates to get the hell out of America. Fanning prejudice and paranoia are his echo chambers Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, America’s most popular network. Every night, these two men act as Trump’s surrogates to seduce viewers into voting for this bigot. But the worst specimen of the ugly American hatching the two-headed monster of racial divide and white supremacy is a man called Steve Bannon. He is Trump’s new campaign CEO. Billed as “the most dangerous operative in America,” he was the chairman of Breitbart Media, leading the ‘alt-right’ movement calling for ethnic and religious cleansing.
The presidential election will be “rigged,” whines Trump, the psychopath narcissist. This ridiculous notion sits well with the frenzied crowds chanting “change.” What happens if their candidate loses? Can it spiral into a permanent movement by Trump’s groupies sworn to make Hillary Clinton’s presidential term a ‘nightmare’? Who knows what is to come. But the signs for a divisive America are today as clear as daylight. Will he or won’t he deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working in America? Will he institute a religious and loyalty test for the thousands of incoming Muslims at every port of entry into America? Will he give a free reign to his openly racist and bigoted beliefs to sideline non-whites and people who don’t practice his religious beliefs, whatever they are?
Let me reserve the last word for Trump’s nemesis: the Khan family. They alone are the flag bearers of Muslims in America. Khizr Khan waving the US Constitution to shame Trump for his proposed ban on Muslims is flashed regularly on US TV channels. Ghazala and Khizr Khan are Trump’s biggest challenge.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2016.
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