[ April 24, 2024 ]
Reza Aslan is academia’s Anwar Awlaki. Reza Aslan (more here and here) is the primary exemplar of the deceptive Islamic supremacist who is widely taken as a “moderate.” He has defamed my colleagues and me in the most obscene and deceitful terms. Robert Spencer writes that he is “thus a good illustration of how people can be taken in by such snake-oil peddlers.” Aslan claims that “women enjoy complete equality in Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Turkey.”
Yes, he is that kind of vicious liar — the bigger the better, and has made his career on lying, defaming and libeling me, my colleagues, and others. He has even fantasized about hate f**king me (raping) me. Here he lies repeatedly and brazenly about President Trump, repeating the usual leftist claims that he is a racist, plus going heavy on the ridiculous and hysterical claim that Trump is about to end the American republic and impose a Christian dictatorship (which Aslan claims would look like Saudi Arabia or Iran, despite the fact that Christianity doesn’t teach stonings, amputations, etc.).
Aslan positions himself as a free speech martyr, claiming: “I lost my show because I spoke the truth about this man.” That is yet another outright lie. Aslan lost his show because he called Trump a “piece of sh*t,” which was too far from “objective news reporting” even for CNN. Trump didn’t get him fired; CNN fired him out of embarrassment over being exposed yet again as the partisan hacks they are.
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When he says he wants Trump treated as an enemy of the state, he is essentially saying that he wants Trump not only removed from office, but executed for treason. What treason has Trump committed? He has the economy moving again, black unemployment is at record lows, industries are coming back to the country, the North and South Koreans are in peace talks, etc. For leftists such as Aslan, America doing well is a capital offense.
“Fired CNN host Reza Aslan: ‘It’s time to treat Donald Trump as an enemy of the state,'” by Chauncey DeVega, Salon, April 30, 2018 (thanks to Vikram):
As we now understand, white evangelical Christians form the core of Donald Trump’s support, despite the president’s abundant and well-publicized personal failings. A recent poll by PRRI revealed that 75 percent of white evangelicals support Trump, apparently an all-time high. This group that has long insisted that a president’s “moral character” was of primary importance has evidently and abruptly changed its collective mind.
It is hardly breaking news that Trump would fail the moral and ethical standards of all the world’s major religions. One much-discussed question in political science and religious studies is how Trump’s evangelical supporters reconcile Trump’s behavior with their supposed Christian values. Is their support for Trump purely transactional, because he and the Republican Party are willing to advance certain public policy goals? What role do racial animus and social-dominance behavior play in the relationship between evangelical Christianity and Donald Trump? Is there literally nothing the president could do that would cost him their support?
In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with Reza Aslan. He is the author of three books on religion, including the bestseller “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.” He holds a divinity degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is now a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. He is perhaps best known to the public as the host of the CNN documentary series “Believer,” which was canceled last summer as a direct result of Aslan’s profane tweets attacking President Trump.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length. A longer version of this conversation can also be heard on my podcast.
How do you think this moment with Donald Trump came to pass? How was this man able to win the White House?
The United States has been undergoing a profound identity crisis over the last decade or so. In many ways, the election of Barack Obama was a clear indication of what that crisis looks like. Partly, this has to do with the changing racial and religious landscape in the United States. Demographers tell us that the United States of America will sometime, in the next couple of decades, become the first nation on Earth to be majority minority. For many of us, that is a cause for celebration. It is, in part, what makes this country so unique and miraculous.
For many Americans — particularly those white Americans who have in one way or another benefited from the privileges that come with their particular skin tone — this is a very scary thing. It’s becoming more and more difficult to say with certainty what it means to be “American.” As everyone knows, the easiest way to identify yourself is in opposition to another. Thus, a large swath of Americans feel as though their very identity is under attack. They are desperately looking for scapegoats, for opposing forces to help them define who they are.
Now here comes this racist, sexist, lecherous, pathologically lying fascist who very clearly outlines for them who they can scapegoat and blame. In many ways, what Trump has done is to tap into an existential crisis of a foreboding lack of self-identity that is eating away the heart of American culture. He galvanized that support in order to launch himself into this disastrous presidency. The real issue here, the real shame of it all, isn’t those who agree with Trump’s racism and sexism, xenophobia and fear-mongering. No, the real shame of it all is those who disagree with Trump but for whom his many horrible traits were not disqualifying and ultimately those voters also felt the same way.
The villain in this story, as far as history is concerned, is not Donald Trump. The real villains are Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
History will be the hardest on the “never-Trumpers” and “mainstream Republicans.” Trumpism took decades to come to fruition. The Republican Party and the conservative movement did not become this extreme overnight. They run away from this fact because they may not like Trump personally, but he is enacting the policies most Republicans want.
Well, this is the funny thing. He is not actually giving them what they want. Right? I mean certainly they can say, “OK, after a year of desperate trying, they put together a tax bill that is now profoundly unpopular.” Nevertheless, it would have been much easier for them to get what they want with literally any other Republican as president except for Donald Trump.
He is actually making the Republican goals much more difficult to achieve because of his rank incompetence. If you ask me why people like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are kowtowing to Trump, it is because they are scared shitless. That’s why. It’s because when we speak of Trump’s base, what we are talking about is a rabid, radicalized, violent group of white nationalists and extremists who are going to make anyone who in any way disappoints their dear leader pay with their careers.
America is also suffering from a profound lack of moral leadership. Where are the leaders, either on the left or right, who are willing to stand up in the public square and say what Trump and the Republican Party are doing is wrong and unacceptable?
This failure of moral leadership has created a permanent stain on the United States, and certainly on our government. I don’t think we recover from this. I know that’s an extraordinary statement. I think that there’s still an opportunity to remove this man from office, if not in the next year and a half, certainly in the next election.
I think there is an opportunity to reverse some of the moral rot that has become a fixture of our political process as a result of his election. But I don’t think, as a country, we actually get over this. This goes to what we were saying a little bit earlier. Partly, this timid behavior of the GOP has to do with fear. But there’s something else going on here too. To be honest, it’s something that only an immigrant like myself can truly give voice to. You see, I come from a country that was one country one day and a completely different country the next. [Aslan was born in Iran.]
Most people around the world have that kind of experience. Look at Turkey: Six years ago, Turkey was a thriving pluralistic democracy with freedom of thought and religion, freedom for minorities. Yes, it had certain problems. All countries have problems. But by no means was it the totalitarian, authoritarian country that it is today. That happened almost overnight. I think there’s this mentality among a lot of Americans that our political system here is permanent: Well, hell, we’ve survived 200-plus years. So, that means forever, right? Our democratic norms and our institutions are forever and nothing could ever affect them. OK, so we have a fascist for president, but eventually he’ll be removed from office, and we don’t really need to worry about it because the system corrects itself.
No it doesn’t. There is nothing extraordinary or unique or permanent about the American system. It is hanging by a thread right now. For instance, a refusal to even consider the possibility of protecting the special counsel investigation from interference by a president who has openly said that he is going to interfere with it is a sign of how perilous the country’s democratic norms are right now.
Those little decisions create the possibility of a permanent crack in the system. I think most Americans just think that it’s inconceivable, that it’s impossible that the system itself can be fundamentally broken because they don’t live in that kind of world. But ask any immigrants to the United States and we will all tell you the same thing. Nothing is permanent. Everything can fall apart overnight if you are not willing to do whatever it takes to fight for it.
The country is one 9/11-style terror attack from the end of the American experiment as we know it. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s the reality that we face under this government….
You are one of the few people who is willing to speak plainly and directly about Donald Trump and the threat he poses to American democracy. Why do you think so many pundits and other prominent voices are afraid to speak truth to power in this moment?
I lost my show because I spoke the truth about this man. There are unquestionably very real consequences and a very real price to pay for speaking truthfully about Donald Trump. Again this goes back to what I was saying regarding American views about our system. There’s this notion — and this is part of the reason why my CNN show was taken away from me — that you have to respect the office even if you don’t respect the man. This is part of American political culture. And yet we’re talking about a man, in Trump, who is shitting on the office on a regular basis. Right? But we have to respect the office.
I think what happens, in this attempt to maintain political norms in the face of someone who has overturned all of those norms so disastrously, are, for example, these arguments about whether we should refer to Trump’s lies as actually being what they are — which is lies — and not as “untruths,” “mistakes,” “alternative facts” or some other verbiage. A wise man once said that the only reason our system in America works is that it’s based on the notion of shame. A lot of what we think are legal restrictions on the office of the presidency are not actually legal restrictions. They’re actually moral restrictions that the founders didn’t bother to put in writing because they simply assumed that shame would keep a person from abusing the powers of the presidency. They did not recognize the possibility of an absolutely and utterly shameless man being in this position.
But Donald Trump’s power comes from the fact that he has no shame whatsoever, and yet we in the media continue to treat him with a level of respect that his office deserves, all the while watching him overturn all those moral norms. It’s time to stop pretending that this man and situation are normal. It’s time to treat Donald Trump as an enemy of the state, which is what he is.
There has literally not been a single major crisis that our country has faced in the last year and a half. What happens when this government is confronted with a real crisis? We are on the precipice right now. If we are not willing to do whatever it takes to overturn this moment, then we deserve what’s coming to us….
The Truth Must be Told
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68 Comments
5 years ago
And they wonder why “journalists” find themselves in danger these days.
5 years ago
This inbred should move in with his girlfriend Obama.
5 years ago
Muslim Terrorist….. should have been deported as an undesirable! Take Uranium-one Mueller with him!
5 years ago
Didn’t this guy eat human brains. He probably has kuru.
5 years ago
Didn’t this guy eat human brains. He probably has kuru.
5 years ago
Didn’t this guy eat human brains. He probably has kuru.
5 years ago
This jerkoff is a walking self-contradiction. I fail to see the benefit to this country if it is “bum rushed” by hordes of illegal and legal aliens that have no intention of assimilating or working to keep the “American Dream” going. With all his bleating about Trump, he fails to cite ONE instance of criminal wrong doing ( and fails to acknowledge the criminal acts of the clintons and obama’s gang). He’s just another parrot, that came here and procured university degrees (at whose expense?) and only intends to tear down the country and install a shlthole composed of “majority minorities.” Maybe he should go back to that shlthole he came from and attempt to fix the mess caused by that “majority minority” over there.
5 years ago
Trump is an enemy of a state, the Islamic state.
5 years ago
Reply to
fred m
Sort of. The problem isn’t the Islamic State, it is Islam. Defeat Islamic State, and it’s only a name, as the Muslims in the Islamic State will just call themselves something else.
5 years ago
Reply to
caliroxanne
Well. I meant the Caliphate or Doom-world or whatever they call it.
D
5 years ago
Reply to
fred m
Bingo! This dumb Muslim is foolishly and arrogantly thinking all of us are stupid infidels like Liberals and we’re on board with his agenda to destroy America and western civilization and install a Shia Caliphate.
Reza Aslan and his Islamic hordes are the real enemy of the state and I truly hope they will be treated that way one day.
Also he’s speaking in these hysterical terms because he’s part of NIAC, he’s a functionary of the Islamic Regime in Iran and he knows Trump is about to cancel the Iran Deal and make life hell for his terrorist buddies who are ruling Iran today.
Good, if Muslim heads are exploding you know you’re doing the right thing.
5 years ago
Reply to
fred m
Thats why asslan went after him. Can’t hear different! But he liked obola…
D
5 years ago
Reply to
fred m
Also the Democrat-Communist-Islamic Terrorist Organization.
God Bless America and President Donald J. Trump. MAGA
“BLUE LIVES MATTER”
5 years ago
Deport this POS
5 years ago
Reply to
SNOWDIN
Take this POS out and carry out the righteous sentence: Hanged by the neck until dead.
5 years ago
Reply to
SNOWDIN
Agree. And the first Muslim democrat president imported 100,000 legal and illegal muslims and
deported christians back to ISIS to be slaughtered after they tried to male it to America http://tinyurl.com/mtc3xch
And those who dared to help were threatened to shut up and MSM would not cover it !
5 years ago
Reply to
Suresh
That’s really awful news, Obama should’ve been exposed for his obvious bias against Christians (and sympathy for Muslims) and been impeached. The scumbag Democrats and traitorous Liberal media protected this extremely evil man.
D
5 years ago
Reply to
SNOWDIN
I never understood the need to import demented imbeciles. It’s not as if there was a shortage or a need for them.
5 years ago
The real enemy of the state is Reza Aslan and all of his fellow Muslims!
5 years ago
As with all leftists, Aslan projects what he is on to his political enemy.
5 years ago
Islam is a political movement & virtually all of the Western cowards refuse to even look carefully & demand that their populations parrot lies about this ideology! Starting with Islam is a Religion of peace despite the fact that for 1400 years it has been violent everywhere.
5 years ago
There was a reason he was fired, but he will never address that reason. He’ll be blaming anyone and everyone, but never himself.
You know, like Hillary Clinton.
5 years ago
Salon can make a clusterf*ck into a friendly circle jerk without even trying!
5 years ago
And ____ we would listen to this mooseslime scumbag ____ WHY ?
5 years ago
This is not about Aslan the Muslim, but Aslan of the Deep State. The Deep State is not as deep as is thought–they are everywhere. Sure, they’re in the highest echelons of the billionaire’s club and try to control the American people and government, but they receive major power and support from the pillars of society (media, entertainment, Left judicial, universities, NGO’s). But wait it gets worse: Half the US population also does not accept Trump’s presidency and are either actively opposing it or support the groups that are treasonous.
Do people realize that the US actually has two governments now? One is the duly elected Trump and cabinet, and many Republicans (when they are not betraying him), and the other simultaneous government is the Democrats, and the components of the Deep State mentioned above. This is very much like the post Gaddafi Libyan government that is split into two factions– both who do not recognize each other. America has devolved into an awful combination of of a civil war and soft coup, doing all that it can to destroy a democratically elected presidency just because he represents the wishes of normal people.
5 years ago
tried to upload to facebook. no go on that one. hmmm i guess it is sorta like a no go zone.
5 years ago
Reply to
JGray1
Yes, it is a no-go zone for me. I REFUSE to go to that website. In fact, I have to add a letter to it when I refer to FarceBook.
5 years ago
Aslan’s rantings tell us a lot about the school where he teaches, The U.of C.
5 years ago
Reza Aslan, another brainless motor mouth who didn’t own a clean shirt until America gave him a job, which like the true imbecile he is, abused like muslims abuse every gift or consideration they are ever given. Not creative writing, abject stupidity.
“America is also suffering from a profound lack of moral leadership. Where are the leaders, either on the left or right, who are willing to stand up in the public square and say what Trump and the Republican Party are doing is wrong and unacceptable”? Where is anyone who will deal openly and honestly with anything without putting a partisan spin on it?
“But Donald Trump’s power comes from the fact that he has no shame whatsoever, and yet we in the media continue to treat him with a level of respect that his office deserves, all the while watching him overturn all those moral norms. It’s time to stop pretending that this man and situation are normal. It’s time to treat Donald Trump as an enemy of the state, which is what he is”. Sounds like islam, which is treated as thought was something respectable, fools like reza aslan and islam are not.
5 years ago
Reply to
Mahou Shoujo
claims donald trump is immoral, but worships a man who had more than 20 wives, committed adultery several times and married a 6 yr old child . his ”holy prophet” murdered lots of his critics ,lied to his followers, approved of sex slavery and also had sex slaves, but it is donald trump he hates .and this man is supposed to be a professor .
D
5 years ago
Reply to
balafama
Well said. It’s disturbing to think how many young minds are being poisoned by this man from his position of authority as a ” professor “. Like Obama, a well-spoken, modern day, biological manure spreader – how useful either of them would be working on a farm. Obviously would know ” Democracy ” if it bit him on his ass.
5 years ago
Reply to
balafama
Reza Aslan is lower than whale excrement in the Marianas Trench — and you can’t get much lower than that!
5 years ago
Reply to
balafama
muslims are stupid that way, nothing applies to them, whereas everything applies to everyone else. To get a phd. from some institutions, the candidate must present evidence that they should be institutionalized in jail or the crazy house.
5 years ago
Reply to
IzlamDownpressesHumanity
That thing ain’t a chimp. It’s the same as ALL moslems, the descendant of the cross-breeding of monkeys with pigs.
5 years ago
A muslum complaining about anyone being an “enemy of the state” is like MuhamMUD the prophet 4 profit complaining about pedophilia.
5 years ago
Reply to
IzlamDownpressesHumanity
You spelled the beloved prophet’s name wrong !
It’s MOO-HAM-HEAD .
( may pis be upon him )
5 years ago
Reply to
Dick Bates
Get it right, it’s Mo-Hand-Job … may goat semen be stuck in his throat.
5 years ago
This anti-American tool is a foreign born moslem, right? I think it is time to rescind his misbegotten, fraudulent citizenship and deport him to his shariah paradise of choice.
5 years ago
It is time to recognize the true enemies of the state who we have foolishly allowed to stink up the gene pool in our free country, which is under assault by these vermin. Remove them and their diseased cultural jihad from our presence! BAMP!
5 years ago
His state, not mine.
D
5 years ago
We’re not under the rule of law anymore, we could deport him to GITMO or execute him and embalm him with pigs blood.
I know how to do the first but would need help with the second.
5 years ago
This evil man is just another sad example of why we must completely rid ourselves of the sociopolitical totalitarian cancer that is islam.
Step 1: Recognize that islam is not a religion, but is an evil, subversive, geopolitical cult of conformance or death bent on world domination that is completely antithetical to Western concepts of liberty and freedom.
Step 2: Ban the practice of islam and all of its trappings. Make islam illegal.
Step 3: Forcibly eject (deport) all who adhere to islam and rescind any US citizenship unless they are natural born Citizens, in which case they should be fined and/or imprisoned for each act of the practice of islam.
Step 4: Put worldwide islam on notice that another 9/11 incident will not be tolerated and that if any islamic group ever attacks us again we will nuke mecca and obliterate their black stone of death.
Step 5: Engage in a nation-wide then worldwide communication campaign to educate the masses in the true evil, unreformable nature of islam, thoroughly debunking any and all lies that islam is in anyway benign.
5 years ago
Reply to
IzlamDownpressesHumanity
I saw an interesting study, lasting approximately forty minutes. I truly wish that I had saved the link. The presenter is a retired Lt. General (three stars) and he dealt with the standing US military force WITH reserves added. It started with that map, showing red counties v blue counties. Dealing with support personnel … it would be impossible for the military, unless they bombed the entire citizenry into submission (righteous human beings … AND the leftist trash) … An armed populace would readily defeat the US military … NO “patriot militias” or anything of that sort needed. Simply righteous citizens, armed, who have had ENOUGH!
5 years ago
Reply to
IzlamDownpressesHumanity
No it wouldn’t, it’d just need Trump to grow bigger balls. Any Liberals (like Antifa/SJW) and Muslims decide to wage war then you go after them. 99% of them will just scream and shout but won’t do anything. I’m sure they value their own lives more than defending Islam.
We don’t have a choice, either we ban Islam and deport Muslims or one day we’ll find ourselves in a real civil war because Islam’s goal has never changed-which is to invade, convert or kill all non-Muslims until the world has been Islamified.
5 years ago
Reply to
Rick Reynolds
Ban mohammedanism .. deport moslems (the vilest of ALL creatures) … on and on and on.
That will NOT even come close to dealing with the problem, much less cure it.
There is but one salvation for humankind … That is to put ALL moslems to the sword. Each and every single last one of them.
5 years ago
Reply to
IzlamDownpressesHumanity
A civil war that we wouldn’t win and a civil war that would be opposed by the left (of course), and the right (the constant blabbing of the likes of Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan yelling about us upsetting the “Arab Street”).
5 years ago
“We the People” KNOW just WHO the “enemy” really is,and it is NOT our POTUS.
Communist News Network is up near the top of the list,along with their useless idiots,present and past..
Semper Fi
http://www.silverbulletgunoil.net .com
13% pork.
5 years ago
Nice try, but these Demoncraps get it BACKWARD all the time. Little do they know their own dear Nerogro was the enemy of the State. I know they consider America to be the enemy of mankind because it grants (for now) the most freedom of men, to the point these anus obsessed people can express their hatred for it.
But if they did the same thing elsewhere their THROATS WOULD BE SLIT!!
Such STUPID fools.
5 years ago
Q: What are the qualifications to work at CNN?
A: There aren’t any.
5 years ago
Reply to
Drew the Infidel
I’m certain there are qualifications to work at CNN like being a muslum apologist/sympathizer/collaborator — as Lou Dobbs discovered when he was axed following his truthful criticism of the religion of death, misery and antisemitism.
