Dorothea Lange Portrait Photograph. FSA.
On Sept. 16, 2014, I wrote in the Times:“Two of ISIL’s most important drivers are its economic engine and its recruiting.” On June 20, 2015, I wrote about having the right methodology to defeat ISIS: “The straight lines of violence against America have internal, psychological turns that should be reviewed and considered. Disaffected youth–at home and globally–have turned to conquerors and scapegoats, religion, race, inventing themselves through violence.”
Trump plays the perfect ISIL foil by never considering the consequences of his mouth. His meanings are backward, outdated by more than 40 years, but he revels in stupid (assisted by the networks!).
ISIL justifies violent, wanton killing, as a part of a cycle of violence–a response to the West’s long history of invader violence. The radicalized minority listens and looks at the screams of the Western majority for military attacks, bombings, ground troops as calls for campaigns of death.
To ISIL offers of comradeship, narratives of approval, pay, and brides, American youth counters as outliers, lone operators, reveling in defiance–committing suicide after attacks in this new war declared over bad behavior and a god who fines divine favor in death.
Nothing sensible for its defeat will emerge from Trump. Don’t wrap this new thing in the shards of broken, old conventions–it is a product of that brokenness! But it is also a poison from a new stir of the spoon. Put behavior before faith. For one, it puts first the need to kill.
Black History 360* 