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There comes a time when decent people just have to stop what they’re doing and say “STOP!” This is one of those times. And if you want to know why I say that “DUNCAN HUNTER JR. IS A SECURITY RISK!,” you’ll have to read on to the bottom.
Duncan Hunter Jr. is an indicted embezzler who only “infiltrated” Congress by getting people to mistake him for his father. Then he and his wife started embezzling campaign funds, and — being up against a credible and attractive Democratic candidate, he has panicked. So he has produced the most racist anti-Muslim ad that you may ever have seen — complete with inflammatory language and guilt-by-association — in a desperate attempt to save his villainous butt. (If I were the likes of Duncan Hunter Jr., I’d assert that Donald Trump and Dana Rohrabacher were going to get him asylum in Russia before the hammer of justice came down on him. Luckily, I’m not.)
I have no idea whether anyone in — and I quote — “Palestinian Mexican millennial Democrat” Campa-Najjar’s extended family has ever had ties to planning, executing, or even appreciating any violent activity. I DO know that he himself has never been credibly accused of any such thing — and that if there were any serious reason to worry about what his family members have ever said and done, an ad-maker could come up with a better source for that assertion than freaking “One America News,” whatever that is. (Sounds like a name the Russians would come up with for their disinformation campaigns.)
I’ve hesitated to use a still from the ad, but I’m doing so because it should make your stomach churn once you realize that it is not addressing anything that Campa-Najjar has done itself. Instead, by demonizing him (based on allegations about his ancestors) and demonizing a respected organization like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) — which is ironically, given our recent discussions here on OJB, pretty much the Arab equivalent of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (“ADL”) — Hunter is trying to inflame hatred against an entire ethnic group to distract from the high likelihood that he will be convicted of misusing campaign funds. Here’s the ad:
If this turns your stomach, you can donate TODAY — seriously, TODAY, so that Hunter knows what prompted your donation and will stop being racist out of self-interest if he can’t muster the morality — to Campa-Najjar’s campaign. But I don’t expect Republicans to do so — although you should want to clean up your own mess — so there’s two thing you can do: (1) share this story on social media and (2) condemn Hunter’s actions either there or in comments below. Stand up — or sit down and type, as the case may be, and be counted!
But I promised you an explanation as to why Duncan Hunter Jr. is a security risk. Here’s why:
I think that we can agree that the vast majority of Muslims, like most Jews and most Christians — and the vast majority of Palestinians and other Arabs, like that of whites and veterans and privileged sons of Congressmen — are not likely to snap and commit acts of mass violence here in the United States.
But some people — in all of those groups and all others — are crazy, frustrated, and on the edge. We as a society try to prevent people from violent eruptions in part by convincing them that they are being treated fairly regardless of their demographic profile. This is part of what “civil society” means — not just “being civil” to one another, but to demonstrate that in the “third sphere” of our social activity, neither government nor business, we are held together by common interests. Sure, this may be more aspirational than actual — but it should at least be our aspiration.
Indicted Duncan Hunter Jr. says “to hell with all that.” He has an election to win — and if racism is what will get him what he wants, well then racism it shall be.
Most people in groups targeted in ads like this will be angry — justifiably so — but not violent. Yet there are some people on the edge, who will look at this an conclude that there is no way that a Muslim — especially an Arab, and among Arabs especially a Palestinian — can get a fair shake and a fair shot at success through the system, no matter how wonderful and exemplary a citizen they have been in their lives. (I don’t know if this is what led that couple in San Bernardino to shoot up a government office filled with innocent people, but it probably included an accretion of indignities milder than this.
And when that happens, who benefits? Why, it’s the Duncan Hunters of the world — who want to distract public attention from their own crimes by getting people to rant at those Muslims, or Mexicans, or Jews. (By the way, not that it should matter, Campa-Ammar himself happens to be Christian rather than Muslim — didn’t get that impression from the ad, did you? Regardless of his being the one on the candidates who has a plausible claim to being a “good Christian,” this attack will sure strike Muslims, more so than Christians, in the heart.)
Duncan Hunter has, with this video, told all Muslims and Arabs that no matter how well they have lived their lives they can expect to be throttled if they try to enter the political system and help to shape our nation’s laws and policies. That imposition of group guilt — one especially bitter flavor of bigotry — makes him an enemy of American values. People of good will, in all parties or none, should react today and for the next month to kick him out of Congress.
*What? We didn’t know it was Black History Month….AGAIN?
I recall reading about Trump’s grandfather early in 2016, and finding it fascinating. I do not recall anyone putting time and money into ads suggesting Trump was unfit for office because his grandpa was a pimp who ran brothels.
Yeah, I’ll send a donation to Campa Najjar later today. There should be a penalty for this sort of indecency