In a WaPo article today, Harold Pollack, explains why the Khans have “cut through a national debate powered by fears” and focused the attention to Trump’s personal cruelty, demagoguery and politics of hate:
Joe McCarthy was brought down by attacks on his decency. Trump will lose the same way.
Sixty-five years ago, America faced the challenge of a snarling demagogue, who captured the imagination of millions by fusing legitimate fears of an external enemy with the cultural, regional and demographic resentments of people who disliked the changing nature of our postwar country. Then, as now, a demagogue could draw upon widespread weariness with imperfect and occasionally complacent liberal leaders, important or petty security scandals, the grind of military stalemate in an inconclusive long war.
Then, as now, the demagogue benefited from apologists and enablers who privately wanted him defeated, but who would not take risks or bear political costs to openly confront him. Then, as now, his political adversaries were divided and hesitant in their efforts to formulate an effective response. Then, as now, parts of the Republican Party gave a vicious demagogue a congenial political home.
Of course, history doesn’t repeat itself. Donald Trump is no Joe McCarthy. For one thing, President Eisenhower and other Republican gatekeepers never allowed McCarthy near their party’s nomination for president. For another, America is a far more cosmopolitan and diverse nation today than it was at the close of the Korean War.
But history does sometimes rhyme. The Democratic National Convention brought an unexpected echo of the McCarthy era. The occasion was a speech by the 65-year-old immigration lawyer Khizr Khan, of Charlottesville, Va. Khan’s son Humayun, a posthumously decorated Army captain, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.
Trump derives political advantage from sheer shamelessness, his willingness to wildly attack others. Yet shamelessness creates vulnerabilities and blind spots, too. Trump’s words betray a strange, indecency toward two Gold Star parents grieving the loss of their son. Millions of voters are tempted to embrace sweeping rhetoric directed against Muslim Americans and other minorities. That’s a reality of American life. But these attacks lose their potency when they’re directed not against abstraction but particular, sympathetic human beings. Americans saw for themselves that Khizr Khan is the better man, the better American, than Donald Trump ever will be.
After courageously speaking out at the Democratic National Convention, the Khans have exposed on a deeply personal level, the dark, devious mind of Donald Trump and Mr. and Mrs. Khan are showing the nation, that they are the better people.
Drawing on the strength of love, compassion and unity, the Khans are speaking for all of us, every mother, father, woman, Muslim, and American who rejects the politics of hate. We are Ghazala and Khizr Khan.
And the Khans are not letting up. Speaking today on Morning Joe, Ghazala Khan shared more of herself and lifted up the decency and goodwill of humanity that will always overcome fear and hate:
Donald Trump has asked why I did not speak at the Democratic convention. He said he would like to hear from me.
“Here is my answer to Donald Trump: Because without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart.”
We are Ghazala and Khizr Khan
The support for the Khans and a rejection of the politics of hate and fear have been overwhelming. The VFW has released a statement, Gold Star Families have rebuked Trump’s attacks and even Republican John McCain has spoken out. Today, taking a stand against Islamophobia, Muslim women are tweeting about who they are.
#CanYouHearUsNow: Muslim group urges women to speak out against Trump
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has called on Muslim women activists to “tweet about who they are and how they speak out,” after Donald Trump speculated on the weekend that the mother of a fallen soldier may have been silent on stage at the Democratic National Convention because she “wasn’t allowed” to speak.
Ghazala Khan stood stoically beside her husband, Khizr Khan, as he spoke about their son, who was killed in 2004 in Iraq. “She probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said in an interview on ABC after hearing the speech.
The social media campaign, which began at 10 a.m EDT on Monday, is using the hashtag #CanYouHearUsNow.
The Muslim Ummah is like one body. If the eye is in pain then the whole body is in pain and if the head is in pain then the whole body is in pain”
So we the Muslim Ummah, whatever colour, nationality or gender, wherever we are, are like this body. If we hear that any part of this Ummah is being oppressed, then we should feel this pain.
“In my heart, I’m troubled and I’m worried by the way faith is cyncially used by some to serve hate, fear, racism and greed.” ~Reverend Barber
The best way we can thank Khizr & Ghazala Khan and honor their heroic son, fallen U.S. soldier Humayun Khan, is to vote and to get as many others that we possibly can, to vote. #StrongerTogether