For the second time in as many months, our court system has rejected President Trump’s Muslim travel ban.
Trump says this makes us look weak. It actually shows we are strong. It shows we mean what we say in our Constitution, and no momentary detour into bigotry and hatred will shake us so easily from our roots.
Make no mistake, this is a profoundly American moment. What is weak is to scapegoat an entire religion, including millions of our fellow Americans — brothers and sisters, husbands and fathers, wives and daughters and sons — who are just as American as any Christian citizen, out of fear.
Trump and his supporters never understood, and continue to prove themselves incapable of understanding, that the Democratic refusal to use the description “Islamic terrorist” was strategic, not PC. There was a reason, and that reason remains very important, despite our nauseating lurch into the shallow end of the civilization pool.
Americans know that we are a country of immigrants, of all faith and creeds, colors and cultures. It is this diversity that makes us strong, and gives us our vitality to adapt and succeed.
If Trump succeeds in killing off the precious identity that has for so long defined us in our best hours, then we will no longer have a United States. We’ll have something I wouldn’t care to live in, and wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.
Shan Wells
Durango
