Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is calling Donald Trump the Islamic State’s “greatest triumph” and says the Republican candidate is using terrorism to his advantage.
“If violence can be an abstraction — and it can; that’s what a threat is — the Trump campaign meets this definition,” Abdul-Jabbar writes in a TIME op-ed. “Thus, Trump is ISIS’s greatest triumph: the perfect Manchurian Candidate who, instead of offering specific and realistic policies, preys on the fears of the public, doing ISIS’s job for them.”
But Abdul-Jabbar isn’t just calling out Trump, he’s calling out Trump’s supporters, as well.
“They are impervious to facts or truth because their (understandable) frustration and anger at partisan greed and incompetence have fatigued them out of critical thinking,” he writes. “… To express their outrage, they have rallied around a so-called “outsider” with no political experience, no detailed policies, and whacky ideas that subvert the very Constitution that he would be required to swear to uphold. Electing him would be like asking the clown at a child’s birthday party to start juggling chainsaws.”
Abdul-Jabbar is far from the first public leader to denounce Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Trump’s statements were slammed by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan as “not conservatism” and “Not what (The Republican) party stands for.”
“As a conservative who truly cares about religious liberty, Donald Trump’s bad idea and rhetoric send a shiver down my spine,” South Carolina GOP chairman Matt Moore tweeted. “American exceptionalism means always defending our inalienable rights, not attacking them when it’s politically convenient.”
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