About three weeks after Election Day, Muslim comedian Mo Amer was in first class, on a non-stop flight from New York to Scotland, sitting right next to Eric Trump. A lengthy conversation about the president-elect’s view on the Muslim world ensued and concluded when Trump told Amer, “Ah, come on, man. You can’t believe everything you read.”
At a more serious venue, a high-level gathering in Morocco, Muslim diplomats say they’ve gotten the same message. They’re not bothered by talk of travel bans, torture, or even strategic nuclear strikes. In short, they’ve learned to take the president-elect seriously, not literally.
Asked about an anti-Muslim bias inside the Trump administration, Middle Eastern ambassadors, businessmen, and diplomats said they weren’t concerned. “No, no, it doesn’t bother me,” Youssef Amrani, adviser to Moroccan King Mohammed VI, told CNN’s Kim Dozier. “The strategic dialogue is between two governments and it will continue,” he concluded.
A more verbose official, speaking anonymously, chided Western sensitivity to perceived slights against Muslims. “The Arab world is more sophisticated than perhaps Americans realize,” she told Dozier. “We recognize campaign rhetoric. They’ll flip when in office.” Apparently less erudite, many in the press hung on Trump’s every word during the 2016 cycle.
Democrats worked hard to make Trump a cognate for islamophobia and he gave them plenty of material. The New York businessman first courted controversy last December when he floated the idea of banning Muslim refugees from entering the U.S. A political millstone since then, the remarks have endured through the primary and general elections.
In an effort to summon outrage, Hillary Clinton summarized the argument during the third debate. “We are a country founded on religious freedom and liberty. How do we do what [Trump] has advocated without causing great distress within our country?” Clinton asked. “Are we going to have religious tests when people fly into our country?”
But the rhetoric Clinton decried on the campaign trail worked at the ballot box. A June survey by NBC showed that half of Americans supported the concept of a Muslim ban with 50 percent and 46 percent of the population supporting and opposing the idea respectively. Later in the privacy of the voting booth, the electorate backed the nominee.
Bypassing precise analysis of the candidate, the electorate took his general sentiment seriously, turning Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin red in the process. Ultimately, politically incorrect gesticulating on Twitter didn’t hurt the president-elect’s popularity or throw the geopolitical balance in the Middle East.
Midwestern voters weren’t offended and neither were Sunni diplomats from the Muslim world. Like the Islamic comic Amer, the two groups have done what liberal politicians and papers of record have declined to do. They dismissed literal analysis of the candidate and now they continue to take the president-elect seriously.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
