The New York terror attack helps Trump’s counterterrorism narrative

Of course, as CNN’s Jim Sciutto noted, the diversity lottery program was actually set up during the George H.W. Bush administration. But that’s largely irrelevant here. Ultimately, all that matters is that Trump knows voters identify him as tough on immigration for reasons of national identity, economics, and national security. And now that the attacker has been identified as a Muslim immigrant, Trump realizes that many voters will take a pause, re-consider his so-called Muslim ban and remark “maybe Trump had a point.”

Americans want security and in moments of exigent danger they aren’t terribly concerned about how they get that security. For that reason, Trump’s immigration policies appear newly credible following this attack.

Democrats seem to recognize this. Speaking on CNN, Wednesday morning, New York City’s liberal mayor, Bill de Blasio said something he would never have said last week. Post-attack Mayor de Blasio suggested that while singling out Muslims is wrong, all visitors to the U.S. must be “thoroughly vetted.” That appropriation of Trump’s language is very telling. It proves that even the most liberal of Democrats know they are now vulnerable on this issue.

Still, Trump shouldn’t push too hard here. The truth of the matter is that most terrorist plots in the United States are undertaken by U.S. citizens. At the same time, while there are ways to mitigate the risk of vehicle attacks, ISIS’s preference for entrepreneurial terrorism has dramatically shortened the time between radicalization and attack.

In turn, the best way to respond to this incident is to learn necessary lessons and maintain physical and ideological pressure on terrorist groups all across the world.

And not to replicate the sectarian division that defines them.