It's Only Fair To Ask: Is Donald Trump Working For ISIS?

Pure coincidence, of course

Donald Trump is already making us nostalgic for those innocent early days of his campaign, when he mostly came across as a buffoon bent on wrecking the Republican Party. He was so good at it that he had to angrily deny he was a Democratic plant. 

Turns out the rumors and jokes were on the right track, but lacking in imagination. With his announcement Monday that if he were King of America, he'd keep all the Muslims out, it looks like he's playing a far more insidious game. We need to look very closely -- very, very closely -- at whether Donald Trump is actually an agent of the so-called Islamic State, because there's no greater propaganda gift an American presidential candidate could give the radical group than announcing the USA will exclude an entire religion from the First Amendment. They're already celebrating in some bunker in Raqqa: "Hey guys! Get this into a recruiting video right now!" It seems only fair to ask: Is Donald Trump's propaganda gift to ISIS an inside job?

Sen. Angus King, the independent from Maine and a member of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees, believes Trump's announcement is perfectly aligned with the ISIS agenda:

A gift to ISIS. This is literally their strategy. If you read about what they're trying to do, they are actively trying to drive a wedge between non-Muslims and Muslims around the world, to push Muslims toward them, toward their extreme version of Islam. This is exactly the worst thing that we could do ... They're trying to convey to the Muslim world that this is a war of the West against Islam, the "new Crusades," that's the language that they like. And I've read some of their strategic writings, and they talk about exactly this kind of thing, where they want us to push our Muslims away and push them toward radicalization.

If Donald Trump's actions align so closely with the goals of the craziest terrorists out there -- the group that's too extreme for al Qaeda, remember -- you have to wonder: Isn't that a little too convenient for mere coincidence? What better way to turn American Muslims against their own country than a leading presidential candidate formally declaring they aren't really Americans? That American citizens traveling abroad would be banned from coming home because of their religion?

Sure, even if Trump were elected, he wouldn't be able to enact such a policy with a wave of his hand, and if Congress got drunk and passed such madness, it would be declared unconstitutional by every court in the country. Again, however, we must ask: is this stunning ignorance of the basics of American law, much less this blithe willingness to discard fundamental American values, simply the result of political rabble-rousing? Or does Donald Trump disregard American law and values because he is not one of us, but a Mosquechurian Candidate planted by extremists who want to divide our great nation and destroy America from within?

Some may argue that radical Muslims would never make use of an infidel whose every word is anathema to them. After his announcement, Trump was heralded by a neo-Nazi website as the "Glorious Leader" for his plan. The Daily Stormer gushed:

Finally: Someone speaks sense ... Get all of these monkeys the hell out of our country -- now!

Heil Donald Trump -- THE ULTIMATE SAVIOR.

Surely a man adored by neo-Nazis couldn't be a secret ISIS operative? Ah, but having a bunch of insane Muslim-hating rabble on his side gives Trump plausible deniability; he can claim he's willing to be politically incorrect to keep America safe. He could even denounce neo-Nazi supporters' endorsements, "if that would make you feel better," while noting their speech is protected by the First Amendment, insulating himself from accusations of trampling the Bill of Rights. There's simply no limit to the cleverness of Trump's ISIS overlords. We are so far down the rabbit hole we can see through the looking glass, people.

There's really only one obvious conclusion: Donald Trump has to be an ISIS plant.

Because if he's not, he must be the logical endpoint of years of Republican nativism and paranoia, the culmination of the Southern Strategy, as explained by Lee Atwater way back in 1981:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

If Trump's not an ISIS operative, then we'd have to acknowledge Trump is the strategy made flesh, the undercurrent brought to the surface, the pure Republican id in a time when jittery Americans are finally comfortable channeling their fear and hatred toward a convenient minority. Since "nigger, nigger, nigger" is still toxic, now they're saying "Muslims need not apply" loud and proud. And by god, they'll shout their bigotry all over TV, not giving a good goddamn that it confirms everything ISIS says about America.

We simply can't believe a real American would stoop to anything the Pentagon has said would so stupidly help our worst enemies.

[ Telegraph / Gawker / Salon / image:  Montel Williams on Twitter]