Linda Sarsour claims she wants to make America better, but, according to her contribution to a Twitter campaign, #NoMuslimBanEver, it’s not entirely clear what her definition of what “better” really is — because her list of better countries appears to include North Korea.
President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban expired Sunday, so the President re-issued new immigration restrictions barring travel to and from seven primarily Muslim countries known to be state supporters of terror, and extended the ban to include Venezuela and North Korea, though the North Korean ban applies only to Americans seeking to travel to North Korea.
Sarsour, sensing an opportunity for attention and relevance, jumped on the new executive order, calling Trump’s travel restrictions a “Muslim ban,” although most Venezuelans are Catholics and religion is prohibited in North Korea. But as if that weren’t enough, Sarsour went on to claim that it didn’t matter whether Trump banned North Koreans from traveling to the U.S. because none of them wanted to come here anyway.
You would think North Koreans are lining up in the droves to come to the US but THEY ARE NOT. Smh. #NoMuslimBanEver
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) September 25, 2017
“Smh” is Twitter code for “shaking my head,” as if President Trump was stupid for believing that people who live under an oppressive Communist dictatorship where everything from their haircut to their television viewing habits to their choice of sexual partners is dictated by a tiny man in green drab.
Apparently, Sarsour also thinks that living under Kim Jong-un is preferable to living under President Donald Trump. That’s not just news to North Koreans, it’s a new experience more than a few Twitter users suggest Sarsour try and report back on.
In case Linda, whose ideals include rabid anti-Semitism and support for female genital mutiliation, is not able to Google exactly what goes on in North Korea, the non-profit Liberty in North Korea, which helps North Koreans escape Kim Jong-un’s thumb, gives a pretty good idea of what conditions within the country are like.
Merely speaking out against the Kims’ regime, as Sarsour does daily to Trump, could land you in one of five political prisons, which already hold between 80,000 and 120,000 people. And that’s if you’re lucky. Most dissidents face “generational punishment” (entire families thrown into labor camps) or public execution. A full quarter of North Korea’s children are malnourished, while Kim Jong-un is thought to be overweight and suffering from gout and diabetes — two diseases you get from the obesity he enjoys, consuming all of the nation’s resources.
There is no national economy. It collapsed sometime in the early 1990s. There is no freedom of speech, freedom of information or freedom of movement. Refugees aren’t coming in droves to the United States because leaving North Korea is nearly impossible — and if caught, it’s punishable by death.
If you do get out, few countries will even consider giving you a refugee visa. China refuses them and conducts mass immigration sweeps designed to root out escaped North Koreans and send them back. Many of the women who manage to escape end up victims of human trafficking.
Sarsour’s comments aren’t just dumb and ignorant — they’re sick and twisted. Needless to say, her Twitter campaign died on the vine.
Sadly, Sarsour is not the only one who’s said such things. Comedian Chelsea Handler claimed Saturday that she’d rather have Kim Jong-un leading the United States than Donald Trump, and even she was echoing other celebrities who have been making such claims all month, as tensions with the tiny southeast Asian nation have intensified.
Early Monday, Sarsour tried to walk back her comments, but failed again, completely misunderstanding the North Korean travel restrictions which prevent travel to the country. There is no travel from North Korea.
North Koreans can’t travel like we can – so why would Trump add NK to the travel ban list? Illogical and unnecessary. https://t.co/wzflJTnbF7
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) September 25, 2017
The answer is, of course, that he didn’t. But never let the facts get in the way of a great narrative.