Just over a year ago, as America debated whether or not Syrian refugees ought to be admitted to the United States, I posted this:
I am thinking about these things as America makes haste to disgrace itself in the matter of Syrian refugees. Of course we bear moral responsibility for our role in disrupting the Middle East’s fragile political equilibrium and making them refugees. Of course we must do the humane thing.
We know, too, what will happen when they get here: They will be humiliated and swindled without apology on the public streets of The Melting Pot; we will undoubtedly create more America-haters than we allow in.
I am reminded of that as we learn that Abdul Razak Ali Artan, yesterday’s Ohio State University knife attacker, may have been motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment.
Just minutes before an 18-year-old Somali college student used a car and butcher knife to attack people on the Ohio State University campus Monday morning, he said in a Facebook post that he had reached a “boiling point” and was “sick and tired” of seeing Muslims around the globe “killed and tortured,” law enforcement officials told CNN and NBC.
Did the widespread eruption of overt anti-Muslim sentiment since Donald Trump’s election played a role in unhinging him? That could never justify his behavior, of course, but it surely is reasonable to wonder if one too many taunts from exultant yahoos played a part.
Nobody of even modest intelligence can doubt that Trump’s election has already affected the … others — and affected them for the worse. Nor should anybody of even modest intelligence be surprised that all resent the degradations that Trump has promised, or that at least some turn violent as they assert their right to decent, dignified treatment.
Expect more.