Trump and "Treason" - Hillary equates political correctness with patriotism.

[Ubiquitous]

“Hi!” Bloomberg’s Jennifer Epstein said to Hillary Clinton yesterday, when
the Democratic candidate took questions from the press in White Plains,
N.Y. Mediaite reports Epstein then asked this question:

“Are you concerned that this weekend’s attacks or potential
incidents in the coming weeks might be an attempt by ISIS or
ISIS sympathizers, or really any other group, maybe the
Russians, to influence the presidential race in some way, and
presumably try to drive votes to Donald Trump, who is, as
you’ve said before, widely seen as perhaps being somebody who
they would be more willing to—or see as an easier person to
be against?”

Mrs. Clinton dodged the nutty Russian-conspiracy theory, but her answer
still exerted upward pressure on eyebrows:

Well, Jennifer, I don’t want to speculate, but here’s what we
know... We know that a lot of the rhetoric we’ve heard from
Donald Trump has been seized on by terrorists, in particular
ISIS...

They want to use that to recruit more fighters to their cause
by turning it into a religious conflict. That’s why I’ve been
very clear; we’re going after the bad guys and we’re going to
get them, but we’re not going to go after an entire religion
and give ISIS exactly what it’s wanting in order for them to
enhance their position.

Secondly, we know that Donald Trump’s comments have been used
online for recruitment of terrorists. We’ve heard that from
former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who made it a very clear
point when he said Donald Trump is being used as a recruiting
sergeant for the terrorists. We also know from the former head
of our Counterterrorism Center, Matt Olsen, that the kinds of
rhetoric and language that Mr. Trump has used is giving aid
and comfort to our adversaries.

Politico observes that “aid and comfort to our adversaries” is “the
constitutional definition of treason.” That’s not quite accurate; the
Constitution uses the word “enemies,” which is more specific than
"adversaries” (Vladimir Putin’s Russia, for example, is an adversary but
not an enemy). But in this particular case, the distinction lacks a
difference, since she’s referring to ISIS, which is undoubtedly an enemy.

So we have a campaign in which a mainstream news reporter is propagating
wild conspiracy theories and a major-party nominee is leveling accusations
of treason over political speech. And we’re supposed to believe the _other_
guy is “abnormal”!

But we’d like to dilate on the less insane premise Epstein and Mrs. Clinton
share—namely, that ISIS prefers Trump and that his rhetoric is helpful to
its cause. The matter is indeed “widely seen” that way, at least among the
foreign-policy intelligentsia, as evidenced by Mrs. Clinton’s various
appeals to authority—to which we’ll add one more: a Foreign Policy essay by
the Council on Foreign Relations’ Max Boot, a former Marco Rubio adviser
who now backs Mrs. Clinton and fervidly opposes Donald Trump.

“Why Trump Is the Islamic State’s Dream Candidate” is the headline, but the
case is very weak. Like Mrs. Clinton’s, it relies entirely on appeals to
authority. Boot also cites Matt Olsen, along with some highly dubious
sources—a pair of “ISIS spokesmen” quoted in Time magazine. Boot does make
a strong case (as if one needed making) that Trump’s policy proposals are
less than fully baked.

Is it true that anti-Islamic, or insufficiently pro-Islamic, rhetoric from
American politicians encourages terrorism? The big picture gives plenty of
reasons to doubt it. Such rhetoric was not a major feature of U.S. politics
during Bill Clinton’s time in the White House, and that didn’t stop Islamic
terrorists from attacking the World Trade Center, the U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole, among others.

After 9/11, President Bush conspicuously adopted a conciliatory approach
toward Muslims and Islam, which President Obama has carried to absurd
extremes. Mrs. Clinton has followed their lead. “Muslims are peaceful and
tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism,” she said
during a public visit to Boot’s shop last November.

America was the target of terrorism when American politicians weren’t
paying much attention to Islam, and also when they were speaking glowingly
of Islam and denying its connection to Islamic terrorism (and still are, in
the case of the president and the woman still favored to succeed him).

It would also be quite a coincidence if politically correct pieties—the
sort of things members of the political class would be inclined to say
regardless—just happened to be the exact formula for “winning Muslim hearts
and minds,” in Boot’s phrase.

It is not our contention that Trump’s rhetoric is well-suited, or even
better-suited than Obama’s and Mrs. Clinton’s, to that purpose. Rather, our
default hypothesis is that the rhetoric of American politicians has much
less effect on terrorists and would-be terrorists than Americans—who for
understandable reasons are focused on our own politics—tend to imagine it
does.

But the rhetoric of American politicians does matter to _Americans_.
Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, has been widely mocked for this
comment on CNN Monday (quote by DailyWire.com):

When it comes to ISIL [sic], we are in a fight, a narrative
fight, with them, a narrative battle. And what ISIL wants to
do is they want to project that they are an organization that
is representing Islam in a fight, in a war against the West,
in a war against the United States. That is a bankrupt, false
narrative. It’s a mythology. And we have made progress in
debunking that mythology.

He may deserve mockery for the infelicitous phrase “narrative fight,” but
there is a truth underlying it: Propaganda—or persuasion, to use a less
loaded term—is a crucial element of warfare.

The problem with Obama and Mrs. Clinton is that they seem completely
oblivious to the need for _domestic persuasion_ -- which is a fancy way of
saying they are hopelessly out of touch with their countrymen, who require
reassurance that our leaders know what they’re doing and are on our side.


The only message they are delivering to Americans is the message intended
for the enemy, or for the population from which the enemy draws recruits.
Consider Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that “Muslims . . . have nothing
whatsoever to do with terrorism.” One can imagine—although we are
skeptical—that that’s a useful thing to say for the purpose of propaganda
aimed at demoralizing terrorists and appealing to nonterrorist Muslims. But
from the standpoint of an American voter who takes the statement at face
value, it is flatly false—a bold-faced lie, really, since Mrs. Clinton
obviously knows it is false.

By contrast, what Trump has to say on this subject is a rough approximation
of the truth. We’re uneasy with the roughness, but too many in the
political class fail to appreciate the importance of the truth.

--
Hillary is still awaiting evidence beyond an explosion, shrapnel,
fire, smoke, and injuries to decide if NYC experienced a bomb.