IRSHAD SALIM — Interfaith harmony took a back seat and religious targeting was a fair game on President Trump’s watch (it begun during the 2016 election season and continued for a while). And, over the years majority of American adult and Jewish Americans started to feesee (feel and see) this: that President Trump’s administration has hurt Muslims — the majority opinion somewhat closes the gap between perception and reality many wrote on, and Trump’s team kept saying that wasn’t true. “Fake news” became a currency to pay back those who pointed out things not so good. Not the American way.
It’s possible, the messages getting across got unwittingly twisted, garbled, squiggled and cryptic. That may have led many to form a wrong opinion.
It takes time though for an average American to realize that things are not what ideally should be — they’re too focused on paying their bills. But they carry a counterweight: listen, Read, Think, Understand, Analyze and Say.
Next election is due this November, and many of Trump’s Muslim American (including Pakistani American supporters) however hope that President Trump’s think tank this time will come up with a more inclusive strategy and not build a wall. After all, the President has described himself as a defender of religious liberty.
A February Pew Research Center survey released on Monday points out that Americans are most likely to say his administration has hurt Muslims and has helped evangelical Christians and the administration’s impact on Jews — this influential community’s majority (64 percent) say Trump has hurt Muslims.
While reporting on the survey, Pakistani newspaper Dawn’s Washington-based correspondent Anwar Iqbal pointed out that Americans are about seven times more likely to say that the Trump administration has hurt Muslims as they are to say it has helped them.
“The survey he wrote included “too few Muslims” as the researchers wanted to analyze their response separately” he wrote. In other words, the opinions are those of an average American adult of other religious beliefs and polled by Pew.
His dispatch from Washington also pointed out that “the support for Muslims was the highest among Jews and the religiously unaffiliated – two groups that consistently identify as politically liberal and Democratic. Majorities in both groups — six-in-ten or more — said they believed the Trump administration had hurt Muslims.”
Americans across the landscape may have taken note of Trump’s rough edges. They’re used to what America is meant to be: all that’s good in the dictionary.
“(Trump) has lowered the standard for civilized speech in America, lowered his own stature and the stature of the Oval Office”. (Anjum Niaz, December 2016). Rest in Peace (RIP) Anjum.
