Khan Trumps Fear-monger

Poor Donald. He's been "viciously attacked" by a thin bespectacled,  mild-mannered, soft-spoken Khizr Kahn. 

What is this world coming to? I can hear my late, great Aunt LaLa now, making that disapproving ticking sound with her tongue.

So appropriate. The supremely arrogant Trump gets taken down by a humble, God-fearing man.

I believe this will ultimately be the last straw, what leads to The Donald's eventual demise.

(Thought this was timely below to revisit in light of Trump's persistent antics. Published last December in The Gazette.)

As the alarm bells clang louder and louder inside Donald Trump's head and resound across this land, we'd do well to recall the quelling contributions of TV journalist Edward R. Murrow amidst the Red Scare of more than half a century ago.

"We will not walk in fear, one of another," asserted Murrow in a 1954 CBS TV broadcast calling out Senator Joseph McCarthy's Communist Party witch hunt, which was stirring fear and promoting paranoia throughout Cold War America.

"We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men," Murrow continued. "Not from men who feared to write, to speak and to associate and to defend the causes that were for the moment, unpopular."

If we were to listen to the increasingly "popular" disingenuous, hateful, fear-monger extraordinaire Donald Trump, who makes allusions to President Barrack Obama as a terrorist and incites fear of all Muslims at home and abroad, then of course, the real enemy, fear, wins. And unreason is free to run rampant.

The Republican presidential front runner's call on Monday to block all Muslims from entering the United States, has shades of the 1950's "McCarthyism" that Murrow confronted head on, exposing its alarmist widespread persecution of innocent law-abiding Americans.

Of course, America must be vigilant and take security measures against radicals the likes of the San Bernardino shooters from entering the country. The House bill passed Tuesday that bars travelers from Iraq, Syria, Iran and Sudan from entering the U.S. without visas, is a good step. But as usual, Trump’s mouth went too far.

As leaders everywhere, domestically and internationally -- from boxing legend Muhammad Ali to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- voice their disgust over Trump's bigoted declaration, Trump's approval numbers at home rose several points. And that's what's really scary.

Trump can say pretty much anything, as long as he says it in that outraged, snappy, trumped up, Donald kind of way. And a growing segment of the American living room masses will look at each other in amazement and nod their boggle heads in agreement.

Trump is what happens when a party consistently puts corporate welfare ahead of its constituents' well-being. In part, we can't blame the "make America great again" believers. But, sooner or later, they are going to have to wake up.

Of course, all this enflamed rhetoric from Trump and his fellow Republican presidential candidates over the terrorism threat and President Obama's perceived international failures, obscures the urgency to address America's long-standing murder by gun epidemic.

Whether this administration is doing enough to fight terrorism can be debated. Whether or not America needs stricter gun controls cannot.

An average of 36 people die daily and 30,000 yearly from gunfire in America. This year so far, there have been 353 mass shootings (three people or more shot), more than one for each day of the year.

Republicans' denial of urgently needed gun control measures -- like thorough universal background checks and assault weapon bans -- is criminal. Period.

You can't separate the two issues -- terrorism and guns. One too easily serves the other, as in the case of the San Bernardino terrorist attack.

Despite California's military assault weapon ban in 2000, designed to prevent the sale of high powered semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 models used in the San Bernardino massacre, manufacturer's subsequent addition of a "bullet button" feature -- supposedly making the weapons less deadly -- was enough to allow the legal sale of those rifles.

Republicans failure just last week to expand background checks for gun purchases on line and also block persons on the FBI's terrorist watch list from purchasing guns, demonstrates the degree to which conservatives are owned by the NRA -- and are failing Americans.

By engaging in campaign bolstering theatrics while ignoring the gun dilemma, Trump, Tea Party presidential favorite Ted Cruz and all the rest of the posturing Republican presidential hopefuls continue to blur the truth of key social issues, and only aid and abet gun-toting killers.

(Kevin McKinney is a freelance writer living at the Jersey Shore.)