
I’m a Muslim, a woman and an immigrant. I voted for Trump - candiodari
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2016/11/10/im-a-muslim-a-woman-and-an-immigrant-i-voted-for-trump
======
gapo
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
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.

~~~
maxerickson
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.

~~~
drodgers
I think registry he means is the proposed registry of all muslims in the US.
Trump also mentioned that it should be illegal for muslims to not report their
neighbors, family and friends for registration too.

------
dev1n
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
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.

------
drodgers
"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.

------
notgood
The relevant bit:

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

------
matwood
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.

------
bbarn
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.

------
cymbalrush
> 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.

------
Davertron
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.

~~~
bbarn
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.

------
rebuilder
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.

------
swombat
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
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.

------
DrNuke
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.

------
tmptmp
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f27qaDQ1uG8)

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

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

~~~
b6
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.

~~~
notgood
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.

