I’m a Muslim, a woman and an immigrant. I voted for Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2016/11/10/im-a-muslim-a-woman-and-an-immigrant-i-voted-for-trump

by candiodari • 10 years ago

33 34 10 years ago

washingtonpost.com

CyberDildonics• 10 years ago

You can always find someone in a sea of 100 million that acts against their own self interest.

b6• 10 years ago

Please try a bit harder to really internalize that you don't have perfect comprehension of this extremely complex situation. And that it is impossible to know what the future holds.

themark• 10 years ago

"a steamroller to any nuanced discourse"

middleclick• 10 years ago

So what was asking for banning Muslims in the first place? Trump clearly says he would do it, I fail to see what is complex in saying "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States". It is as clear as it could be.

gnudon• 10 years ago

That is a great signature line. "Please, try a bit harder to really internalize that you don't have perfect comprehension of this extremely complex situation. And recognize that it is impossible to know what the future holds."

notgood3• 10 years ago

People like to believe there must be some really complex explication for each thing that happens, but just a few hundred years ago we burned a lot of women for being "witches" and a lot of homosexuals because we didn't like how they used their genitals, so many times the explication of "a big chunk of people can be really really stupid" is the actual answer, despute not feeling satisfying.

notgood3• 10 years ago

Actually that's true, im sure there must have been at least one Jew who supported Hitler at the time (under an uncommon rationalization: it's our punishment for X, it's a test of God, or else)

DrNuke• 10 years ago

Under every post we can find all the range of opinions, all fundamentally equivalent without a debate. In reality, we as persons are who we are because of our history, heritage, body and culture so for me, from my country and in my own skin, it is pretty difficult not considering stupid a muslim immigrant woman voting Trump.

notgood3• 10 years ago

The relevant bit:

The revelations of multimillion-dollar donations to the Clinton Foundation from Qatar and Saudi Arabia killed my support for Clinton

gapo• 10 years ago

This is what she says: "Yes, I want equal pay. No, I reject Trump’s “locker room” banter, the idea of a “wall” between the United States and Mexico and a plan to “ban” Muslims. But I trust the United States and don’t buy the political hyperbole — agenda-driven identity politics of its own — that demonized Trump and his supporters."

Trump’s “locker room” banter ? I don't buy the political hyperbole ?

I'm neutral on the election, but the theme I repeatedly see in a lot of Trump supporters is how they assume he does not mean what he says.

Personally I would hate if my manager said things that he did not want me to understand.

anbende• 10 years ago

I'm seeing that too. People are locking on a piece they like and hoping that he's just kidding about the rest.

She's hoping he'll be tough on radical extremists but that he's just kidding about banning muslims or creating a registry.

drodgers4• 10 years ago

This.

He did a wonderful job of saying whatever people wanted to hear — even if he contradicted himself — and lots of people selected for what they liked.

I think it's fair to say that we have very little idea of what he'll actually do.

maxerickson• 10 years ago

We don't have bright line ideological tests but we already pretty much have a registry of inbound travelers.

I say bright line test because many visas require an in person interview prior to travel. That's a big opportunity to have de facto tests for the 'wrong' sort of person.

fallinghawks• 10 years ago

The problem is that even if Trump creates no actual anti-Muslim policies, his supporters have been given the green light to do whatever hate crimes they want.

trav4225• 10 years ago

I'm seeing this too: people are locking on a piece they don't like and completely ignoring the rest.

LyndsySimon• 10 years ago

Trump supporters [...] assume he does not mean what he says.

I read this elsewhere (they are not my own words) but I think it's applicable here: "The Left takes Trump literally but not seriously; the Right takes Trump seriously but not literally."

I think this can be illustrated in the response meme "the wall just got ten feet higher!". Trump's supporters often subtly mock him in other ways as well; off the top of my head there is the recent use of "bigly".

That's not entirely unprecedented. George W. Bush was well-known for sticking his foot in his mouth by making up words (e.g.: "strategery") and Joe Biden is seen as similarly dopey by the Left.

mwpmaybe• 10 years ago

George W. Bush was well-known for sticking his foot in his mouth by making up words (e.g.: "strategery")

Generally true, but "strategery" was actually coined by SNL writers for Will Ferrell, although it is frequently misattributed to Bush. The Bush administration did start using it internally tongue-in-cheek.

sean_patel• 10 years ago

I repeatedly see in a lot of Trump supporters is how they assume he does not mean what he says.

This.

Stated more eloquently by a media person recently....

"The Left takes Trump literally but not seriously; the Right takes Trump seriously but not literally."

swombat• 10 years ago

Urgh.

But I am a single mother who can’t afford health insurance under Obamacare. The president’s mortgage-loan modification program, “HOPE NOW,” didn’t help me. Tuesday, I drove into Virginia from my hometown of Morgantown, W.Va., where I see rural America and ordinary Americans, like me, still struggling to make ends meet, after eight years of the Obama administration.

"So... I voted for a party whose battle cry since Obamacare has been to make sure no one can afford it, and whose policies are proven to do nothing for rural america - unlike the other side, whose policies are well intentioned but not as effective as I'd like."

Finally, as a liberal Muslim who has experienced, first-hand, Islamic extremism in this world, I have been opposed to the decision by President Obama and the Democratic Party to tap dance around the “Islam” in Islamic State. Of course, Trump’s rhetoric has been far more than indelicate and folks can have policy differences with his recommendations, but, to me, it has been exaggerated and demonized by the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, their media channels, such as Al Jazeera, and their proxies in the West, in a convenient distraction from the issue that most worries me as a human being on this earth: extremist Islam of the kind that has spilled blood from the hallways of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai to the dance floor of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

"So I voted for the guy whose blundering about will do more to swell the ranks of Radical Islamic Terrorism, by removing the grey zone and therefore playing directly into ISIS's stated strategy, than any over-caution the other side may have been guilty of displaying."

By mid-October, it was one Aug. 17, 2014, email from the WikiLeaks treasure trove of Clinton emails that poisoned the well for me. In it, Clinton told aide John Podesta: “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL,” the politically correct name for the Islamic State, “and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

It took all the spin of RT, Assange, Wikileaks and the right-wing side of the press to turn Clinton's attempt to use existing ties to pressure foreign governments to reduce their support for terrorism, into its opposite.

I'm sorry but my only conclusion from reading this article is that this woman has a fatally flawed understanding of how the world works. She voted for the opposite of what she wants, because she let herself be bamboozled by the decadent press and Trump's bombastic con-man spiel.

Final kicker:

No, I reject Trump’s “locker room” banter, the idea of a “wall” between the United States and Mexico and a plan to “ban” Muslims. But I trust the United States and don’t buy the political hyperbole — agenda-driven identity politics of its own — that demonized Trump and his supporters.

Hannah Arendt, a highly intelligent thinker, on the topic, points out that when politicians are allowed to say one thing and do the opposite, totalitarianism is not far behind.

rubberstamp• 10 years ago

Then totalitarianism did actually start a long time before Trump.

It took all the spin of RT, Assange, Wikileaks and the right-wing side of the press to turn Clinton's attempt to use existing ties to pressure foreign governments to reduce their support for terrorism, into its opposite.

Clinton did accept money from the same governments that provides support to ISIL and she didn't report that to the administration while she was secretary of state. When you look at many things its hard to ignore "pay for play" shady dealings via clinton's charity while she was secretary of state. Which is important, locker room talk? If Trump raped somebody, there would've been an actual case against him.

matwood• 10 years ago

Well written, and goes to a point I made yesterday to someone who was dumbfounded why Theil would support Trump. There are lots of issues. No one candidate will line up with every single issue you have so you have decide which ones are most important.

As an aside, Reason magazine (a libertarian mag) made a similar argument for Bernie Sanders being the 'best' candidate. The issues he could change lined up well with the libertarian agenda, and the issues that did not line up he likely could not/would not do anyway.

dev1n• 10 years ago

Donald Trump's campaign gave white supremacists a soap box upon which to legitimize their beliefs of hate and fear. Hate and fear lead to totalitarian states and the authors opinion that Islamic state is the greatest threat to this country as opposed to the hate and fear that trumps campaign legitimized is unfortunate for the future of our country.

timdafweak• 10 years ago

Absolutely, this. They feel their platform is now legitimized, as evidenced by Trump supporters marching through colleges shouting "white rule", klansmen walking around in klan garb... daily reports of Muslims being harassed in schools, streets and elsewhere. Although Trump won't institute any overtly racist policies, he will also not oppose the racists who supported him. This, In their minds gives them the legitimacy to operate in the open. We've already seen this start.

drodgers4• 10 years ago

"I have absolutely no fears about being a Muslim in a “Trump America.” The checks and balances in America and our rich history of social justice and civil rights will never allow the fear-mongering that has been attached to candidate Trump’s rhetoric to come to fruition."

That's a pretty high-stakes bet.

America's institutions have never really been tested in this way before: Trump has lots of gifts to offer to congress in exchange for their cooperation with his plans, and he will probably get to select the controlling votes on the supreme court. Those forces potentially mitigate all of the checks and balances.

America will look very different in 4 years and Trump will be right at the fulcrum of that change.

Davertron• 10 years ago

First I guess let me say that I would love to hear more of this kind of thing, as I think the rest of the US would right now, because a lot of us are shocked by the outcome of the election.

And while I can understand her feelings about Obamacare etc., it's very frustrating to hear someone voting for a candidate based on the actions of islamic extremists. The danger of being harmed or killed by terrorism is extremely low, especially here in the US. It's like people being afraid of flying, but having no problem driving or riding in cars every day, when statistically you're far more likely to be harmed in a car than a plane.

bbarn2• 10 years ago

Do you live in a major metro area? Because I don't think the rest of the country is shocked outside of them. I live in Chicago and I spent most of the prime election campaigning time travelling (mostly by car) on the weekends for bike races with my fiancee, and after seeing what the US 2 hours outside of big cities felt like, I was predicting a Trump victory despite all of my friends telling me I was insane.

To your other point, almost everyone has a hot button issue that matters to them. For many it's abortion, for many it's gun control, and they will almost always vote for that issue, and not the candidate. It should be no surprise someone from an Islam background cares so much about what's happening in Islamic nations and our response to it.

drodgers4• 10 years ago

"The danger of being harmed or killed by terrorism is extremely low"

Yes, but to be fair, she could be more angry about what islamic extremists are doing to people in the middle east, which is really awful and on a huge scale.

It's not clear how Obama referring to it as "islamic extremism" would have any effect on that though. It seems like the state dept. made a judgement call that describing these assholes as 'islamic' was doing more harm than good, so they changed their language; I don't have any idea about whether that was reasonable or not.

bbarn2• 10 years ago

People assume all Trump supporters were that - Trump supporters. Like many recent elections, it came down to who someone disliked less, for many people, for many different reasons.

I know plenty of intelligent, middle class men and women who voted for Trump despite his best efforts of acting like a racist idiotic clown, not because they liked him in any way, but because their dislike for Hillary was that strong.

jaoued• 10 years ago

Nice good looking turkey getting invited for Thanks Giving and Christmas this year! Enjoy!

cymbalrush• 10 years ago

where I see rural America and ordinary Americans, like me, still struggling to make ends meet, after eight years of the Obama administration.

Blaming the President for your situation is pathetic. You are responsible for improving your situation and cannot expect government to fix everything for you.

rebuilder• 10 years ago

Good that the author wrote this. I hope more Trump supporters can provide insight into their motivations, as they're clearly poorly understood by the opposition.

That said, I don't see how someone who sees climate change as a threat could justify voting for a candidate who's pledged to, basically, undo all progress the previous administration made towards actually addressing the problem. Climate change is an existential threat, all the rest of the issues pale in comparison.

tmptmp• 10 years ago

This podcast by Sam Harris is worth contemplating.

"Sam Harris - President Trump and the Failure of the Left" [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f27qaDQ1uG8

I’m a Muslim, a woman and an immigrant. I voted for Trump

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