Conway defends Trump’s terrorism claims
How should the country respond when the president says something nearly every day that is flatly untrue?
On Tuesday, President Trump said that America’s murder rate is at its highest point in nearly half a century. The truth is that it’s close to its lowest rate in that time.
That one was bizarre, but probably harmless.
On Monday, though, he told a far darker lie, one that seems intended to whip up irrational fears of terrorism. That one could do real harm.
In a rambling speech to military leaders, Trump claimed that the media is conspiring to hide reports of terror attacks, that the violence is far worse than it seems.
“It’s not even being reported,” he said. “And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”
Why is that lie more serious? Because an outsized fear of terrorism can lead America to overreact.
When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, polls showed that 70 percent of Americans wrongly believed Saddam Hussein played a personal role in launching the September 11 attacks. It was a conspiracy theory, cynically peddled by Vice President Dick Cheney to drum up support for the invasion.
How did that work out? Nearly 4,500 American soldier were killed, Iranian influence in the region grew at our expense, and the Islamic State rose from the rubble.
Trump’s lie about terrorism is as cynical and dangerous as Cheney’s. He wants to scare Americans so they will support his provocations of Muslims across the world, from the immigration orders to the blind support of Israel, to the slander that American Muslims are hiding terrorists in their midst.
Trump can’t win support for this crusade without scaring decent people. This time, he’s lying with a purpose.
Let’s go the facts:
The Cato Institute, a conservative think-rank, calculated the odds of being killed by a refugee terrorist in America in any given year at 1 in 3.6 billion. The number of Americans killed by terrorist from the seven Muslims nations targeted in the immigration ban is precisely zero.
The number of people in the West killed by terrorists is lower today than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, thanks to the Irish Republican Army and Basque separatists in Spain.
President Obama noted last year that Americans are more likely to die from a slip in the bathtub than from a terrorist attack. Most years, being crushed by furniture is a greater risk as well. Trains, planes, and car are all far more dangerous.
A Monmouth University poll released this week asked Americans to identify the top concern facing their families: Only 2 percent named fear of terrorism. Trump wants to drive up that number.
They say that Eskimos see so much snow they distinguish dozens of types. Given the flood of lies coming from Trump, it seems that we’ll have to do something similar.
Some of them are just silly. But this one is dangerous.
More: Tom Moran columns
Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
