Trump Popularity

As Donald Trump rides the wave, it is interesting to analyze his undeniable popularity among Republican primary voters. He has successfully conflated the two most urgent issues terrorism and immigration. By stoking fears of the Outsiders, the Others, he projects the strength Americans crave for protection against their own worse nightmares.

The fact President Obama has been unable or unwilling to speak forcefully about destroying ISIS only serves to make candidate Trump seem more effective in contrast.

What Trump supporters conveniently forget is that in San Bernardino as in Paris, the main actors were homegrown not imported. In Paris every one of the attackers were either born in France or in neighboring Belgium. Yes, some were radicalized in Syria, but they were homegrown.

In California, as in the 2009 attack by Major Nidal Hasan in Fort Hood, the attackers were American-born citizens. Yes, Syed Rizwan Farook the San Bernardino killer did import a radicalized fiance, Tashfeen Malik. But according to investigators he needed no militant bride to plot violent acts against his own country.

Yes, immigration screening must be tightened. The 19 9/11 hijackers came here legally. But domestic terrorism is not about immigration or at least not mostly about immigration. It is mostly about a perverted ideology that twists too many Muslim minds, most urgently in the United States. To direct all our energy against a perceived foreign foe risks leaving unexamined the enemy born right here at home.