Trump’s Ban on Muslims After President Obama Urges Us to Unite

In light of the presidential election, many voters, newsrooms and politicians have focused on the comments and reactions of the potential future leaders of this country.

One candidate who seems to have made quite a name for himself is republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. After the San Bernardino shooting on December 2, 2015 he spoke out to ban all Muslims from entering the country. Disregarding President Barak Obama’s speech from the day before, when he asked the country not to “turn against one another” out of fear.

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” a campaign press release said.

CNN reported that during a Fox News interview on Monday evening Trump confirmed that his policy would not apply to current Muslims in the U.S.

“I have Muslim friends, Greta, and they’re wonderful people. But there’s a tremendous section and cross-section of Muslims living in our country who have tremendous animosity,” he told Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren. “It does not apply to people living in the country, except we have to be vigilant.”

Although Trump has a large following who are supportive of the proposal, many voters from New York City strongly disagree.

Local New York voters have spoken against Trump’s suggestion. “It is extremely absurd and irresponsible. What he said is completely against what America stands for. This country is all about diversity and tolerance for all mankind, he is selfish and racist, I don’t see a difference from what Hitler believed.”

Even immigrants who are not voting have commented “I moved here from China, who’s to say he won’t some day say this same thing about the Chinese, if he becomes president and has an issue with the Chinese government. The leader of this country should be tolerant of all people, and he should encourage us to stand together.”

The New York Times/CBS Poll recently done shows the percent of respondents saying a terrorist attack is very or somewhat likely in the next few months.

59% of the participants are very concerned that the threat of terrorism against Americans will be committed by terrorists entering the U.S. from other countries. 70% think the militant group ISIS is a major threat to the security of the United States.

“The American people are scared, and they will follow Trump and continue to support him because his radical view is coming off as “strong” and that is what the people are looking for.” Said Jennifer a student at City College.

Primary voters rated their party’s candidates on how confident they were in their ability to handle the threat of terrorism. Donald Trump was in first place with 40% of people saying they were confident in his ability to handle threats of terrorism. Hilary Clinton was second with 35%, and surprisingly Bernie Sanders who has served 33 years in the Air Force came in last with 14% of people feeling confident in his ability to handle terrorism.

On Sunday December 6, 2015 President Obama addressed the nation of this tragic event. “We cannot turn against one another, by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam.” He explained that groups like ISIL want this sort of reaction.

Although President Obama’s speech encouraged the country to stick to its values, Trump spoke out with a suggestion that had the crowd roaring with enthusiasm and approval at his rally on Monday night. Supporters showed their approval on social media as well.

On the other side, the Obama administration, a lot of the Republican Party and many voters were opposed to Trump’s proposal. Claiming that doing exactly that goes against our values as Americans, and will put our country at risk.

Ben Rhodes, who is Obama’s deputy national security adviser said “The fact of the matter is ISIL wants to frame this as a war between the United States and Islam, and if we look like we’re applying religious tests to who comes into this country, we’re sending a message that essentially we’re embracing that frame and that is going to make it very difficult to partner with Muslim communities here in the United States and around the world to prevent the scourge of radicalization that we should be focused on.”

“We should make it harder for ISIL to portray this as a war between the United States and Islam, not easier,” he added.

And of course the Republican Party had a lot to say. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said in a radio interview mentioned on CNN, “This is the kind of thing that people say when they have no experience and don’t know what they are talking about. We do not need to resort to that type of activity nor should we.” More in line with what President Obama mentioned in his speech, Christie went on to say, “What we need to do is to increase our intelligence activities. We need to cooperate with peaceful Muslim Americans who want to give us intelligence against those who are radicalized.”

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham called on every presidential candidate to “do the right thing & condemn @Realdonaldtrump’s statement.” Graham later on told CNN that Trump’s rhetoric “is putting our troops serving abroad and our diplomats at risk.”

Senator Graham who has also served in the Air Force for 33 years said during an interview on CNN, “He’s a race bating xenophobic religious bigot, he doesn’t represent my party and he doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.”

“He is empowering radical Islam, and if he knew anything about the world at all you would know that most Muslims reject this ideology and they died by the thousands trying to combat this radical ideology. You’re undercutting their efforts, you’re slandering their sacrifice, you’re marginalizing what they’re trying to do to make the world a better place. You know how you win this war? You side with people in the faith who reject this ideology, which is 99%, and you know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.

A CNN news report mentioned one of Trump’s ideas for how to bring down ISIS, including targeting terrorist families. “You have to wipe out their homes where they came from, you have to absolutely wipe them out. It’s the only way you’re going to stop terrorism,” is what Trump said. A CNN reporter asked one of his supporters about her thoughts,

“Are you in favor of bombing terrorist homes?”

“Absolutely, absolutely….. People will continue to reproduce, and they will raise children in their beliefs.”

Quite the contrary to President Obama’s speech, he left off with a strong message for all people, not just Americans.

“But just as it is the responsibility of Muslims around the world to root out misguided ideas that lead to radicalization, it is the responsibility of all Americans — of every faith — to reject discrimination. It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country. It’s our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently. Because when we travel down that road, we lose. That kind of divisiveness, that betrayal of our values plays into the hands of groups like ISIL. Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes — and, yes, they are our men and women in uniform who are willing to die in defense of our country. We have to remember that.”

Over all there seems to be people on both ends of this situation, people who are for the banning of Muslims, because they seem to think it is the safest thing to do. And those people who are very against it, who believe it will put our country at risk even more, along with our troops abroad.

With the upcoming election will Trump’s proposal cause him the Presidential Election? Seems not, his supporters have stood by him still, and he has yet to drop drastically in the polls despite his continuous controversial comments.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

For those who are unaware of who ISIS is exactly, here is a rundown.

ISIS is an acronym for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIL, which President Obama mentioned in his speech, is an acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

According to CNN, ISIS is the Islamist militant group, which has seized a chunk of land stretching from northern Syria to central Iraq. The group began in 2004 as al Qaeda in Iraq, before changing their name to ISIS two years later. It was an ally of, and had similarities with, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda: both were radical anti-Western militant groups devoted to establishing an independent Islamic State in the region. ISIS has been proven to be more brutal and more effective with controlling territory it has seized.

ISIS is now in control of more than half of Syria’s oil assets, along with some oil fields in Iraq, it could be making them up to $3 million each day, according to the energy expert Luay al-Khateeb.

ISIS council seems to be broken up into 8 categories: Financial council, which is weapons and oil sales. Leadership council who draft laws and key policies, the Military council who is the defense of the “Islamic State.” The Legal council has decisions on executions, and recruitment, Fighters assistance council are the foreign fighter aid. And the Security council in charge of internal “policing,” executions, along with the Intelligence council which is in charge of information on ISIS enemies.