The Democratic party sent out a fundraising email to supporters Monday night that calls for “action” in the wake of the Orlando shooting that killed nearly 50 people. But the letter, signed by Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, does not mention terrorism nor the radical Islamist ideology the killer reportedly expressed.
Wasserman Schultz asks for donations to the Democratic party after noting the list of recent high-profile and mass shootings, from Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011 to Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut in 2012 and last year’s attack on black churchgoers in South Carolina.
The email never explicitly mentions gun control, though it implies that’s the “action” Democrats would pursue in response to Orlando. Indeed, that’s what many Democrats, including likely nominee Hillary Clinton, have said since the attack on Sunday.
But the email also never mentions one of the apparent motivations of the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen. Investigators have found evidence Mateen was influenced by radical Islamist ideology and claimed to have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. The FBI has said the America-born Mateen had expressed a desire to “martyr” himself in the name of Islam—an action radical Islamist groups like the Islamic State and al Qaeda have encouraged. Mateen’s father, an immigrant to the U.S. from Afghanistan, has expressed pro-Taliban and anti-homosexual views, saying his son likely adopted some of those views.
But Democrats seeking donations did not mention any of the threats from this ideology, nor the need for “action” against groups like the Islamic State, which continues to expand its territory in the Middle East and its influence among sympathizers worldwide.
In this, Wasserman Schultz and the DNC may well be following the lead of Hillary Clinton, whose own fundraising email offered a perfunctory mention of terrorism but focused more on urging Americans to not “demonize” Muslims.
