Dec 10^th

It seems that Donald Trump has had to change his travel plans. He had expected to be warmly welcomed by Israel whose citizens are much more at risk of terrorist attack than are Americans. Prime Minister Netanyahu announced his rejection of Trump’s “exclude the Muslims” policy. Netanyahu said that Israel was open to all faiths. OK, so that means one less tourist for Israel; Trump has announced that now he is delaying his trip until after he becomes President of the United States. Poor Trump, someone should have told him that about 17 percent of Israeli citizens are Muslim…and they vote…and Netanyahu is an elected official. See, Donald money can’t buy everything.

In Scotland, where he has lots of business interests, he has been deprived of his status as a member of GlobalScot a premier international business network. Then Robert Gordon University has rescinded the honorary degree they gave him because his comments were incompatible with the university’s values. But wait! There’s more! A petition with 390,000 signatures is circulating to ban him from England. This has really gotten under his skin and there is nothing he can do about it. Well, who cares; he has the whole-hearted support of two thirds of the Republicans questioned. What does he care if the Brits think he’s a fascist? He isn’t running for anything over there…and that is too bad!

Then we have Representative Peter King of New York, a member of the Homeland Security Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. His current enthusiasm is to investigate Muslim radicalization. He recently appeared on Frank Gaffney’s radio program where he claimed that there were too many Mosques. Frank Gaffney is a well-known conspiracy theorist and he and King had a very agreeable meeting. Gaffney is the founder and chief person at The Center for Security Policy. His conspiracy suggestions have extended to insisting that Grover Norquist, the anti-tax man, is in fact an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood. Gaffney’s other fantasies are similarly absurd. Why a very senior member of the house intelligence establishment would stoop to appear on Gaffney’s program is hard to explain. But that’s no easier to account for than the notion King has that there are too many Mosques.

We have always been easily seduced into paranoia; I believe it is genetic. Someone is out to get us so we must get a carry permit, use this soap to avoid body odor (Don’t you use **** don’t you wish everybody did?). It is only a step to get to the belief that some group, usually defined by religion or skin color, is responsible for all our problems. Then comes the strong man who can make everything OK if we will just give him some room to do his thing even if doing his thing isn’t entirely legal.  Right now we might be uncomfortably close to that.