Did you know that during these halcyon days of President Donald Trump’s second term, it has become “acceptable to hate all Muslims”? Neither did I, but no less weighty an authority than Salon mag says it, so it must be true, right?
Yes, of course I jest. In reality, this Salon piece is a superb example of how the establishment media lies and stirs up hysteria in order to make Americans hate Trump and what they think his policies are. Neither Trump nor his supporters say that it is “acceptable to hate all Muslims,” but if Salon told its hapless leftist readers what they really did say, they might end up agreeing and becoming MAGA Republicans. Lying to them ensures that they’ll stay on the reservation, but it’s telling. A political party or faction that has to lie to its supporters to make sure that they remain supporters is not likely to have a bright future: reality will win out in the end.
One thing you can say for leftists, however, is that they’re good at lying. They’re clever about it. And so Mohammad Ali Salih starts his Salon piece with a display of credentials that is designed to impress us, and to show us how serious it is that he now feels so threatened in the age of Trump: “This coming week, I am planning to return to my White House vigil. I am an 84-year-old journalist who is Muslim, Arab and Black. I have lived and worked in Washington for 46 years.”
Impressive! Yet it actually harms Salih’s case. Could a non-Muslim journalist live and work in Mecca for 46 years? No, he couldn’t do so for 46 seconds.
Anyway, as in so very many other articles of this kind, Salih spends a great deal of column space chronicling how Trump and so many other patriotic politicians are supposedly mean to Muslims. He claims that “over Easter weekend, Trump finally crossed my personal red line: He attacked Islam itself.” Did you miss this alleged attack? So did I, and there’s a very good reason for that: it didn’t actually happen.
Trump actually said this: “Happy Easter to all, except those who want to destroy our Country with their radical religions and ideologies. We are a Christian nation, and we will not let Islam or any other force replace our heritage. It’s a Crusade for survival!” This is not an attack on Islam; it is a statement of determination that the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage will be preserved.
If Saudi Arabia issued a statement saying it would defend its Islamic identity against encroachment from Christianity, Mohammad Ali Salah wouldn’t have a word to say about it. But if an American president says he will defend the nation against the advance of Sharia, this becomes an “attack” on Islam. It’s a clever ploy, but in the end, that’s all it is: a ploy.
Salih claims that “many Arab and Muslim rulers” are cowering in fear of the big bad orange Islamophobic man, as they are “clearly afraid to criticize Trump, and apparently afraid to defend their own faith.” And so the intrepid octogenarian Mohammad Ali Salih has to step into the breach: “I may be a humble, elderly journalist, but I am not afraid.”
Salih says he will take on the evil Trump all by his lonesome: “I plan to return to stand in front of the White House, alone and silent. I will raise above my head a banner that reads, ‘What is Islam?’ and ‘What is Terrorism?’ In smaller print, it will say: ‘I Will Be Here Until I Die!’” That’ll show him!
The fearless Salih claims that Trump has “frequently used inflammatory rhetoric toward Islam.” In reality, however, Salih wildly overstates his case. Nothing Trump has said or done, even saying “Praise be to Allah” to the leaders of the Iranian Islamic regime, which drives Salih into a frothing rage, means that it is “acceptable to hate all Muslims.”
Related: Does Your Name Determine Your Destiny? In Muhammad Jihad Kelly’s Case, Maybe So
Also like so very many other articles of this kind, Salih never comes close to dealing with the fact that people are concerned about Islam not out of “racism” or “bigotry” or “Islamophobia,” but because they’re concerned about jihad violence and Sharia oppression. Salih and his ilk cannot and will not grant that as a legitimate concern, because to do so would be to admit that “the religion itself is inseparable from terrorism,” which Salih explicitly denies and decries.
Yet what are we to think about all of Islam’s violent and supremacist teachings? If just one of these Islamic apologists would deal honestly with those texts and teachings, some progress might conceivably be made. But they never do so. Doing so would interfere with the actual goal of the article, which is to stir up hatred of Trump and cast Muslims as victims, diverting attention from those who are actually trying to bring Sharia here. It’s clever, and on Salon’s readers, it will likely work.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy PJ Media's conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member