The Left’s vicious attack on Barron Trump’s emotional reaction to a picture mocking his father’s beheading is not that different from the way Islamic extremists push children directly into the line of fire. While Americans from both sides of the divide came together to condemn the horrific mock visual of a decapitated and bloody President Trump, an entire class of people devoid of core American values saw it as an opportunity to attack an innocent child.
The graphic photo shoot by D-list comedian Kathy Griffin and photographer Tyler Shields resulted in appropriate condemnation. Veterans of Foreign Wars, a respected non-profit of veterans and active duty servicemen, pointed out that beheading people and holding their severed heads as trophies is what our enemies do. Liberal-leaning outlets like The View and CNN also expressed their disgust with Griffin’s tasteless performance. CNN terminated their contract with Griffin, with other partnerships also releasing themselves from any affiliation with the comedian.
Despite Griffin’s apology admitting she had gone too far, within 24 hours dialogue among Leftists had already pivoted the story with new attacks now launched against President Trump’s 11-year-old son Barron Trump.
Unhinged celebrity personality Rosie O’Donnell threw a Twitter fit discrediting the child and taking away his agency as an individual. She wasn’t the only one.
Typically accusing the White House of “alternative facts” and piggy-backing off the trend of fake news birthed during the presidential election, these impassioned hordes are ready to annihilate any reality that doesn’t fall within the strict totalitarian parameters of their rigid world view.
The cold reptilian heartlessness it takes to have zero compassion for a child was also exhibited by Jeopardy champion and New York Times best-selling author Ken Jennings, proving that an ability to quickly recall information doesn’t actually equal intelligence.
Shockingly, Jennings is also an author for an entire children’s book series published by Simon and Schuster.
In a continued blitzkrieg of attacks, Leftists who like to pride themselves as championing liberal values questioned Melania Trump’s parenting choices and slut-shamed the First Lady.
The stream of attacks against Barron Trump continued on Twitter, as Americans with amplified voices through social media took to the platform to pick on an 11-year-old boy who had nothing to do with Griffin’s tacky performance, which was forced on him as it was forced on millions of other Americans.
Not among the voices defending Barron Trump was Kathy Griffin, who is entirely responsible for the chain reaction. With 2.06 million followers, Griffin leveraged her platform to incite hatred and fetched a quick apology as damage control. Thereafter, she was largely absent from the disaster she initiated, abandoning not only a critical opportunity to leverage dialogue about tensions in the American cultural landscape, but also abandoning any defense of a child she recklessly pulled into a crossfire.
America has experienced periods of volatility but we’ve never been a point where that volatility resembles the character of the enemy we’re concurrently fighting: radical Islam. While American Leftists rely on virtue signaling as a tool to highlight their moral superiority, they unwittingly empower the ideology of a people who also have no problem sacrificing children in order to advance their agenda.
Every day, jihadis use children as human shields, throwing them in the line of fire. Every day, violent Muslim militants don’t think twice about strapping on a bomb to a child and pushing them into a crowd. And every day, they feel one hundred percent justified in slaughtering a child, whether it’s a physical, spiritual, or psychological slaughter.
The brutality with which radical Islam treats children is the new brutality of the American Left, a total abandonment of American values that protect the innocent. The brutality of the Left is the opposition, the enemy we need to rally against; it strips children of their dignity and their agency, is filled with vitriolic hate, and sees the individual as irrelevant fodder in a greater battle.
The American Left’s slut-shaming women, treating individual choice with disdain, championing totalitarian adherence to group think, and inhumanely dismissing people with different ideas as “trolls” is counter to American values. Otherwise, what are we fighting against or outraged by when the next terror attack strikes?
The radicalized groupthink of the Left is un-American and it’s time we called it that. If you respect this country, then you stand up for the best it has to offer. You stand up for the defense and dignity of children, and you stand up for dialogue in a civil exchange of ideas.
You stand up for America.
Shireen Qudosi is the Director of Muslim Matters, at America Matters. Follow her on Twitter @ShireenQudosi