When the word “terrorism” is mentioned, pictures and moments in time from 9/11 are often the first things that come to mind. Accompanying the mental imagery is all kinds of other associations and perceptions on terrorism that may in fact not always be accurate.
A Little Bit of Background
“Terrorism” is defined as “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence…through fear.” Americans tend to subconsciously add to that definition and say that acts of terrorism are performed by foreigners who’ve received admittance into this country “by mistake.” However, according to Peter Bergen, a CNN National Security Analyst, the majority of the acts of terror in the U.S. have been committed by our very own citizens. In fact, he says that, “every lethal terrorist attack in the United States in the past decade and a half has been carried out by American citizens or legal permanent residents” who do not have direct contact with outside terrorist forces or organizations.
My Question: Why isn’t Hilary focusing on this in the 2016 Election?
I believe that the Clinton campaign has not capitalized on this prime piece of knowledge. It would not only strengthen Hillary’s current policies on immigration and terrorism, but would also benefit the liberal message as a whole, if it were emphasized that all acts of terror since the destruction of the Twin Towers have come from internal sources.
The idea that terrorism is a war from within, is exactly what people on the left want to hear and should be preaching to reinforce their arguments. In other words, this opens up the doors for them to write laws that give more control to the government and less control to the people all in the name of “freedom” and “safety”. This enforces the argument of the need to monitor emails, phone calls, text messages, and web browsing. Just think about it, if American citizens and legal documented people are the ones committing the acts of terror, then these people need to be more closely watched for the good of all people, according to the liberal narrative. It is a mystery why Hillary has not chosen to focus on this issue at hand.
While it’s not exactly true that the only sources of terrorist attacks since 9/11 have been American nationals (there have been plenty of attempted terrorist attacks by foreign-born, naturalized citizens: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/truth-about-foreign-born-domestic-terrorists), you make an interesting point. Trump places a lot of emphasis on external terrorist fears, and he most certainly ignores the data that says Muslims are by and large peaceful, and that most terrorist attacks are not committed by foreign immigrants.
But given that Trump’s bread and butter policy platform is immigration, and given that he has created such a rallying point around this emotional issue, a factual and rational appeal by Hillary Clinton probably would not do much to help her case. If she were to advocate for focusing on internal threats as opposed to focusing on the external threats which Trump has hyper-inflated, she would appear weak. Trump would likely call her feckless for ignoring this “grave external threat.”
The bottom line is that Trump controls the narrative and the rhetoric when it comes to immigration. Trump says that external terrorism is a problem; many people buy into it. In this way, Hillary is forced to respond to the threat of external rather than internal terrorist threats- simply because Trump has convinced enough people to be fearful of them.