Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Hate in the Heartland: Trump the Radicalizer

"For years, immigrant workers — from Vietnam, Mexico and eventually Somalia — have moved to this flat stretch of prairie and farmland on the Oklahoma border to work at the meatpacking plants. 

For the most part, people got along, [Kay] Burtzloff said, but something changed when Trump entered the political scene. 'I will be the first to tell you I do not fear getting killed by a Muslim,' Burtzloff said. 'I fear getting killed by an angry white guy. That is much more likely to happen.'

It’s here in a trailer in this town of 20,000 people that three white men — fueled by a steady diet of anti-Muslim online memes and conspiracy theories, and captivated by presidential candidate Trump, who proposed a Muslim ban and proclaimed that 'Islam hates us' — appeared to discuss a plot to massacre Somali Muslim immigrants who lived and worked nearby...

Patrick Stein, 49, Curtis Allen, 50, and Gavin Wright, 52, are accused of plotting to bomb an apartment complex that housed many Somalis and its on-site mosque. The three are believed to have gathered fertilizer to make a bomb while they added to their arsenal of weapons and ammunition. But the FBI says it foiled their plans with arrests four weeks before the 2016 election. The men have been in jail ever since."

[Huffington Post]

Don't Kill The Messenger...And Pay Attention To The Message

In a recent piece in Vanity Fair , Rep. Jasmine Crockett [D-TX], attracted some controversy with her accusation of many Hispanic voters h...