Donald Trump’s campaign for leadership of the Republican Party has had more than its fair share of obscene, reprehensible remarks from the American businessman and now Presidential candidate. His plans to ban all Muslims from entering the country, should he be President, are just the latest in a string of derogatory, ill-thought-out comments. From failing to correct a man who claimed that President Obama is a Muslim, to claiming that the Paris attacks would have been a ‘much, much different situation’ had the victims been armed, to referencing Israel’s border wall with Palestine as a good example when speaking of a barrier he intends to build on the America – Mexico border, Trump’s mouth has well and truly exposed him as a scandalous, vulgar bigot. But you already knew that, didn’t you?
Trump’s latest calls for the UK to heed the words of “respected columnist” Katie Hopkins are just the latest in a string of inflammatory remarks that flow out of his mouth on an almost daily basis now. As expected, the relationship between these two highly controversial, right wing figures was projected across the mediascape, giving a suited platform for their equally radical agendas.
Thank you to respected columnist Katie Hopkins of Daily https://t.co/LgtY0qdv9U for her powerful writing on the U.K.’s Muslim problems.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2015
Outlandish Claims
Throughout his campaign, Trump has repeatedly claimed that there has been a significant amount of media bias against him, alongside accusing many news agencies as hiding the truth from the general public. This interview from CNN news with Trump’s spokesperson Katrina Pierson portrays his perspective, standing as definitive proof of the rocky relationship between mainstream media and the Donald Trump campaign.
Media’s “whining because Donald Trump isn’t playing by their rules,” @KatrinaPierson says: https://t.co/f0dQUXBMEs pic.twitter.com/mPp9koPsqS
— Reliable Sources (@CNNReliable) December 6, 2015
The main stream media wants to surrender constitutional rights — I believe #ISIS needs to surrender!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015
Trump’s attempts to create racial and religious divides in a society that is already plagued with them have been plastered all over the media since day one, leaving a vast wealth of terrorist propaganda in the form of neatly crafted western news pieces. Since the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, extremist groups such as al-Qaeda have thrived on material which is both offensive to Muslims, and can be used it both as a recruitment tool and a means to accumulate resentment against Western nations. Extremist’s have always found a way to use Western creations against them, Joe Bidden, the Vice President of The United States, went as far as saying that the Guantanamo Bay prison is “the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world.” Al-Qaeda’s main source of propaganda, the magazine “Inspire”, frequently spoke of those imprisoned within Guantanamo as a means to gather further dissent against the West.
Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban” is just the latest cog in the propaganda wheel spun by extremist groups, and this needs to be stopped now before it spirals out of control. We live in a world where anyone with a smart phone and access to the internet can post on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, meaning that it has never been easier to voice an agenda and in turn influence opinions through the power of technology, and although this can be used largely as a force of good, it is in turn worryingly perilous.
Although Trump’s views do need to be exposed for the bigoted, hate fuelled ideologies that they are, the coverage that both broadcasters and newspapers are giving him is only serving as a platform which can then be viewed and projected further afield by undesirable extremist groups. These groups can then use it to paint a largely false picture of what Western beliefs entail, inciting further hatred and creating deeper divides in mankind. Placing Trump and his extremist ideologies at the forefront of the media is merely playing into the hands of terror groups such as The Islamic State and al-Qaeda, by giving them a highly publicised (and dislikable) figure who they can them deem as a common enemy. What with terror attacks happening all across the world, from Mali, to Turkey, to France, Afghanistan and to America, all the coverage given to people like Donald Trump should work to reiterate a familiar phrase – “don’t feed the troll.”
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