Trump’s Muslim ban may have already served its hate-mongering purpose
Cherian George says the defeat in court has not stopped the Islamophobia network behind the plan from gaining the public space it craves to air its fringe views, which may well be its primary aim
US President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to ban refugees and immigrants from certain Muslim-majority countries has become a political football match watched with the intensity normally reserved for a Super Bowl showdown. Experts track every legal move and countermove, trying to gauge who will ultimately prevail.
Unlike a normal sport, though, there is more to these court battles than the points that flash on the scoreboard. They are also an opportunity for hate propagandists to air their tropes and talking points before a wide audience. Indeed, if their past campaigns are anything to go by, this may be their primary objective – to exploit the high-profile spaces afforded by democratic processes for propaganda purposes, thus nudging mainstream perspectives towards their own world view. The actual implementation or enforcement of whatever policy they’ve been agitating for may be of secondary importance.
Donald Trump’s revised travel ban targets same seven Muslim-majority countries
“Litigation creates earned media and thus provides an excellent opportunity to engage the public through this media,” the report says. “Indeed, the drama of a courtroom setting attracts public attention and thereby provides a forum and an audience for expressing the appropriate public policy narrative.”
One ingenious lawfare campaign has involved purchasing advertising space for anti-Islam messages in Metropolitan transit systems. When a metro authority rejects an ad on account of its hateful content, the activists promptly take the authority to court for allegedly violating their free speech rights.