In Sunday night’s presidential debate, a Muslim woman from the audience asked both Trump and Clinton about addressing Islamophobia. Through inherently ambiguous language and a slight shift in message, Donald Trump answered the question signaling his immigration policy, but in a less blunt way than before.
Trump’s Original Message
Donald Trump’s original proposed Muslim ban has effectively created a scenario in which Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, fear the man on the top of the GOP ticket. Trump’s crude rhetoric directed towards illegal immigrants has continued to also target Muslims immigrating to our beloved country. Not only did Trump originally want to ban those coming in illegally, but he wanted to ban an entire religious group of people because of recent terrorist attacks.
Trump calls for Muslim Ban, Dec. 2015.
Sunday’s Debate
When asked about Islamophobia on Sunday, Trump answered by calling for extreme vetting from Syria and “certain areas of the world” because we do not have any documentation of who these people are, and what their feelings are towards America. This answer reveals the rhetorical concept of language being inherently ambiguous because many political issues involve events that take place in the future. In this case, Trump cannot name countries, other than Syria, banned from immigrating to the US because these countries could change. He may know good and well about the Syrian refugee crisis, but left his answer ambiguous because of what may change.
Trump also dodged the question of whether or not his Muslim ban still exists. While his website still includes the original proposal, his debate answer slightly shifted to “extreme vetting.” He did not mention his original immigration policy based on religion, and instead said he wants to look at different areas of the world where many Muslims are coming from. While it is late in the game to shift his message, Trump realizes he needs to do so to expand his audience; perhaps to an audience of moderate voters, and maybe even Muslim voters.
What we know now
The debate begged the question by moderator Martha Raddatz: “if it was a mistake to advocate blocking Muslims from entering the country” (Strauss). As Trump answered by shifting his message slightly and using ambiguous language, he may have confirmed that this initial immigration policy was not in his best intentions. Trump introduced this proposal with ambiguous language, and is now adhering to a shift in policy to both expand his audience and reshape his character before Election Day. With less than a month to go, Trump has to somehow win over the votes of those who have called him a racist or demagogue following his tough immigration rhetoric.
Work Cited
Strauss, Daniel. “Trump defends proposal for Muslim ban as call for ‘extreme vetting'”. Politico.com. Politico, 9 Oct. 2016. Web. 9 Oct. 2016.
I agree with you that Trump’s words were ambiguous in many ways, particularly regarding whether or not he still supports the blanket ban. He clearly wanted to avoid this question, and as I stated in my article, it is unclear whether or not he has really changed his view or not on this policy. I believe that he said he no longer supports the ban just to appease voters and potential voters, but threw in the fact that there would still be “extreme vetting” to show that he does not necessarily approve of the Muslims entering the country and while he may not be banning them entirely, he is still trying to do everything in his power to keep them out of the country. I agree with Hilary’s comment that we can’t ban a group of people because of their religion because this country was founded on the freedom of religion. By banning a group of people due to their religion, we are completely going against everything that America stands for.