In the course of the 2016 slog towards the White House, two things have begun to happen every time there’s a terror attack here or abroad. First, Obama releases a statement warning America to avoid Islamophobia. Then, the GOP slams him for refusing to condemn radical Islam. Following the terror attacks in Brussels and Pakistan and the admittedly cavalier-sounding response from Obama, the cycle repeats itself again. Particularly, Sen. Ted Cruz had sharp words for Obama: “We don’t need another lecture on Islamophobia.”
But his own words prove him wrong.
After the Belgium attacks, which the IS has claimed credit for, he suggested that the obvious solution to terror is to authorize the police to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods” to prevent radicalization.
This is not only racist pandering to Islamophobes, but also impractical and ridiculous. The first part is obvious — using scare language like “toxic mix of migrants”to describe refugees in Europe and describing American Muslims as people who we need to “secure” is run-of-the-mill xenophobic at best and unequivocally racist at worst.
But we already knew that Cruz doesn't like Islam. He frequently alludes to the violence of Islam, especially in comparison to Christianity, a religion he portrays as unerringly peaceful. One of his campaign advisors is famous for fear-mongering with regard to Muslim Americans. He has jumped on the Trump train as far as banning Muslim immigrants from the U.S. is concerned.
And although you wouldn’t know it from Donald Trump’s rousing success in this primary, I think many Americans would at least superficially say that the president shouldn’t be biased against any racial or religious group. Even other Republicans — former President George "Dubya" Bush and current presidential candidate John Kasich come to mind — make a point of acknowledging that, clearly, not all Muslims are at fault for terror attacks, even those perpetrated by people who claim to be doing it because of Islam.
But if we’re living in a more outwardly prejudiced country than I thought, then maybe those Americans would at least agree that our president shouldn’t be making unproven, unrealistic policy suggestions.
And make no mistake, his suggestion is both of those things. First, I question his phrase: “Muslim neighborhoods.”
Muslim neighborhoods? What does that mean? Where are the Muslim neighborhoods? Do we track where Muslims live? Are there are neat little patches of undesirable faith that Ted Cruz can authorize the police to “patrol and secure?” What on Earth is Cruz actually suggesting?
Anderson Cooper got a clarification out of Cruz on that subject: He has said that he meant “any area with higher incidence of radical Islamic terrorism.” This seemed to be backing off the point that all Muslims are dangerous and need their neighborhoods “secured.” But it still doesn’t make much sense. After all, Muslims by no means commit a majority of the terrorist attacks on American soil. And if terror attacks perpetrated by Muslims have “areas” of higher incidence, it’s probably less because that’s where terrorists live and more because those places are higher-profile targets, such as New York and the D.C. area, for example.
So it’s dubious that his plan would actually prevent any terrorism, and it’s clearly at least slightly discriminatory against the millions of American Muslims who are doing absolutely nothing wrong that they should be profiled for.
Although Cruz has defended anti-LGBT legislation by crying religious liberty, it seems he is only interested in that liberty when it applies to himself. On his own website, he laments the recent attacks on citizens' First Amendment rights and claims to "champion Americans' religious liberty." With the exception, of course, that it must be his religion that they are practicing their right to.
I cannot emphasize enough how blatantly, revoltingly hypocritical it is for him to try to capture the religious right by whining about government tyranny while promoting a plan to bring down a virtual police state on the heads of people who haven't done anything but have the audacity to practice their freedom of religion.
And what would the cost of this lack of security and violation of religious freedom be? How much money would it cost to train officers to spot “radicalization” and stop it in its tracks? How much money would we be wasting on officers unnecessarily policing Muslim neighborhoods instead of doing any of the dozens of more vital and worthwhile jobs the police do? Instead of throwing away money on something that would help no one and hurt the 3.3 million Muslims currently living in the U.S., couldn’t we literally do anything useful with it?
National security experts agree: Cruz’s plan is garbage. People who can read between the lines of “police Muslim neighborhoods” and “toxic mix of migrants” agree: It’s racist, too.
I expect gibberish from Donald Trump. Ted Cruz, at least, is usually more coherently poisonous. But this is meaningless fear-mongering. And while I’m barely surprised, I’m still disgusted.