The sparse attendance and conspicuous lack of enthusiasm at Joe Biden’s rallies seems to have led old Joe’s handlers, despite his 10,000-point lead in the polls, to decide that another round of Islamopandering might be just the shot in the arm their campaign needs. After all, hard-Leftists such as Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Linda Sarsour are all Muslims, and all were firmly in the Bernie Sanders camp before the Democratic National Committee shivved their man yet again. Their support for Biden has been decidedly tepid. And so it was time to send them some love.
On Wednesday, Biden released a video message to Muslim Advocates, the association of Muslim lawyers that bears the primary responsibility for demanding, back in 2010, that the Obama administration remove all mention of Islam and jihad from counterterror training. Obama, of course, immediately complied, despite the fact that this would hamstring the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to understand, and defeat, jihadists. And now Joe is working hard to show them that he will be just as solicitous.
“Today,” Biden declared, “trust is ebbing; hope seems elusive. Instead of healing, we’re being ripped apart.” That’s actually true, Joe, but whose fault is it, really? Biden continued: “And I refuse to let that happen. We have too bright a future to leave it shipwrecked on the shoals of anger and division.” After that poetic flight, Biden got to the point: “As president, I’ll work with you to rip the poison of hate from our society, honour your contributions and seek your ideas. My administration will look like America, Muslim Americans serving at every level.”
Let’s see. Muslims make up around one percent of America’s population. So if the administration of President Biden (or President Harris, or President Pelosi) is actually going to “look like America,” it will feature one Muslim appointee for every ninety-nine non-Muslim appointees.
Of course, the Democrats are unlikely to be that rigorous. Biden needs the support of the hard-Left, including not only Muslims such as Omar, Tlaib, Sarsour and their Muslim supporters, but their non-Muslim supporters as well, who are likely thrilled that Biden will be “inclusive” enough to place large numbers of Muslims in positions of power and influence. And in doing so, the Biden/Harris/Pelosi administration is unlikely to make any effort whatsoever to rule Sharia supremacists, Muslim Brotherhood operatives, and enemies of the freedom of speech out of consideration. Why, that would be “Islamophobic.”
And if there is anything Biden doesn’t want to appear to be at this point, it’s “Islamophobic.” At his town hall Tuesday, where George Stephanopoulos and Co. fawned over him for an hour and a half, Biden once again repudiated what he called the “New Green Deal,” despite the fact that his website still affirms support for it. The far-Left is increasingly dominant in the Democratic Party, and doesn’t take kindly to the candidate’s repeatedly throwing them under the bus. And so look! He said “Inshallah”! And now he wants Muslims at “every level” of his administration!
Will the far-Left be fooled by this? Probably not, as they’re more evil than they are stupid, but they don’t really have any other place to go. The notorious anti-Semite and former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour signaled last July that she was keeping Biden on a short leash, stating “I choose Biden” and then immediately emphasizing that her support was decidedly conditional: “But I choose him as my opponent in the White House. I want him to defeat Trump so we can mobilize our movements to hold him accountable and push him to do and be better. We can’t do that with Trump.”
Bernie Sanders, said Sarsour, “earned our votes & we need Biden to continue to do the same.” She elaborated: “When Joe Biden does the right thing, you better believe Linda Sarsour’s going to say, ‘You know what? Thank you so much President Joe Biden for doing the right thing.’ And when President Joe Biden doesn’t do the right thing our community needs to come together and hold him accountable.”
Even Biden’s latest pledge isn’t going to make this problem go away. The only thing that will mollify the Omar/Tlaib/Sarsour (and AOC) wing of his party will be for him to embrace, wholeheartedly and without reservation, their entire socialist, internationalist, pro-migration, anti-counterterror agenda. Anything short of that, and the hard-Left will stay home, and then so will Joe, with nowhere to go but his basement even on January 20. Joe’s people will be working very hard in the next two weeks stave off that possibility, and so expect him to engage in even more Islamopandering.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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