Keith Ellison Slams Trump For Inspiring Wave Of Anti-Muslim Violence And Rallies

On MSNBC’s AM Joy on Saturday, Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison slammed Donald Trump not just for inspiring a series of anti-Muslim rallies taking place across the country today – but he asserted that the president’s rhetoric is at least somewhat responsible for the rise in anti-Muslim hate crime taking place across the country.

“This kind of thing is green-lighted by the president’s rhetoric,” Ellison said.

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After Joy Reid referred to statistics that show how anti-Muslim incidents have skyrocketed over the past few years, jumping 65 percent in a two-year span, Ellison quickly took aim at Trump:

This kind of thing is green-lighted by the president’s rhetoric. And so we’ve got to stand up. I guarantee you one thing, Joy, as these anti-Muslim rallies are happening, there will be multi-faith, interfaith rallies that emerge as well. Americans are not going back to the bad old days when you couldn’t be Catholic, you couldn’t be Japanese, you couldn’t be black, you couldn’t be all these things. We’re simply not going back there. We know what that is, and we’re going to continue to assert our right to be human and on this planet. 

As anti-Muslim marches play out across the country on Saturday and hate crimes against Muslims have skyrocketed over the past couple years, it’s important to know that none of these things are happening by accident.

Since Trump’s emergence as a political figure, bashing the Muslim community has been one of his biggest applause lines among his supporters – calling for a ban, claiming Muslims celebrated after Sept. 11, suggesting the U.S. needs a database to track them, and repeatedly making Muslims feel like they don’t belong.

It is this kind of language, as Ellison said on Saturday, that has given license to deranged individuals who are inspired to carry out acts of hate and unless this president changes his rhetoric and denounces his previous comments – both highly unlikely – then this will continue to happen.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.