Step back and contemplate on what we've seen, heard and read about the Republican presidential front-runner since summer, colorful business impresario Donald Trump's bigotry and lies ever reach new lows. A segment of American voters are becoming blind to our civic duties such as educating ourselves about the issues and candidates as we prepare to elect a new president.
This complaint isn't about Republicans or Democrats. It's about thinking hard about what lies ahead for our country.
Sadly, the leading Republican candidate seems not to understand that running on empty rhetoric, falsehoods and bravado will get him only so far. The hype about his candidacy suggests his supporters really don't care about facts, let alone ideals. That strategy might get him through Iowa this winter, maybe even the nomination of the Republican Party come summer. But it's unlikely to favor him in a general election when victory counts on more than just raucous elements of the Republican Party.
Take Trump's claim that "thousands of Muslims in New Jersey were dancing when the Twin Towers fell." Reports discredit this claim. It conjures up notorious moments in our past -- Sen. Joe McCarthy's lies about a government thick in communists, lies told to Congress to hide the Iran-Contra affair and the invasion of Iraq that was based on baseless assertions regarding chemical weapons. It plays into a narrative spun by our worst Islamic enemies about Americans stereotyping and vilifying Muslims. While I respect Mr. Trump and other candidates' constitutional rights to speak freely, it behooves all of them to start sounding like presidential candidates.
Political opportunists running for president serve up hatred and fear about law-abiding American citizens who just happen to be Muslims. Proposals such as shutting down mosques and issuing special ID cards for Muslims -- highlight not only Mr. Trump's ignorance of the Constitution (once so important to his tea-party backers) but similarly dark efforts undertaken a few generations ago in another part of the supposedly civilized world.
What we are witnessing are speeches by Mr. Trump that are a mixture of just cherry picked facts, quotes, figures, distortions, misinformation, misinterpretations, and misquotations that fuel hatred and further the agenda of dividing our country rather than uniting it.
I wouldn't be surprised that, when all else fails, Trump fabricates a lie that Muslims are somehow behind anti-Semitism. Ironically, modern anti-Semitism in the Mideast was imported by the Judeo-Christian Europe where some pretty horrendous things happened to the Jewish people. Thomas Friedman, the Jewish New York Times columnist, once said: "Had Muslims been running Europe in 1940s, 6 million Jews would have still been alive today."
Trump's ideas offer disturbing parallels with other moments when Christianity veered off course, just as all religions do when driven by zealots and bigots. His talk of closing mosques and registering Muslims fits neatly with everything from the crusades to the Spanish inquisition to resolutely anti-Jewish pogroms. It would serve Trump better to assume some humility before lecturing others on terror, intolerance and religion. Only a few days ago, Trump proposed killing the families of terrorists in fighting Islamic State.
I stand firm in my belief that Christianity is not a religion of violence or hate because of what crusaders did long ago to Muslims and Jews. Rather, Christianity -- like other monotheistic religions -- is based on love, compassion, tolerance and faith. Similar things can be said of Islam and Judaism. It's worth remembering as we deal with grief and confusion about what erupted in San Bernardino.
Robert Pipe, an American scholar who has studied suicide terrorism between 1980 and 2005, argues that news reports about suicide attacks are profoundly misleading: There is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism or any of the world's religions. After studying 315 suicide attacks carried out over the last two decades, he concludes that bombers' actions stem from political concerns, not religion.
Equally important, Gallup polls of 50,000 Muslims in 35 countries found that 93 percent of Muslims condemned the 9/11 attacks and similar terrorism. And the 7 percent who support violence credited political reasons, not religion.
The objective of Mr. Trump's campaign is to smear, generalize, stereotype, and degrade a segment of American society - Muslims in this case - in order to desperately win votes. Unless Mr. Trump tells us why not the vast majority of Muslim Americans and others elsewhere behave as violently and aggressively as the tiny minority of politically motivated extremists, he might well stop pretending he has something relevant to say to us about Islam or American Muslims in general.
Where from here: As an American, it pains me to see where the Republican Party is headed; the type of candidates it presents, lack of inclusivity, marginalization of certain segments of society (Arabs/Muslims, Hispanics, African Americans, women), and lack of vision. The party needs to challenge Mr. Trump and let him know that "some Muslim Americans are doctors, lawyers, professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect."
Conversation in the United States about religion and politics these days is less civilized, more contemptuous. This involves more than the Republican Party's survival in a diverse world. We're turning on neighbors who have been part of the fabric of our society for decades. What we need to remember is America will remain the land of the free and home of the brave only so long as we rally to its greater ideals. As admiring Alexis de Tocqueville once said of our country, "Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves."