First, the backlash, which has been uniformly a conservative phenomenon. It began across the pond with Poland, and spread quickly to our governors, no fewer than 18 of them were quick to announce that they would oppose any efforts to re-settle Syrian refugees in their states. With one exception (and shame on you, Maggie Hassan), all of these governors are Republicans, with so-called "moderate" Rick Snyder of Michigan leading the way. And never mind the fact that doing so is utterly, completely, absolutely illegal. That doesn't matter when, with a few notable exceptions (take a bow, S.E. Cupp), there's a right-wing blogosphere (filled with hatred and lies) to appease. Even Congress is getting into the fact, using the refugees as yet another excuse to not do its job.
Welcome to Obama Derangement Syndrome in its most full-blown form. All that matters to those on the conservative side of our ideological divide is bringing down the President, even if it takes a tragedy in a country they hate to do it (remember "Freedom Fries"?). The blind animosity toward Obama has reached a point at which they can't even face a simple question, the answer to which would expose not only the irrelevance of their animosity to the refugee crisis, but the danger to our country posed by that animosity in the first place:
Why are the Syrian refugees fleeing in the first place?
For the seemingly obvious reason that they, like us, hate ISIS and want to get as far away from ISIS as possible
And the more we do to prevent the refugees from reaching safety, the greater the likelihood that they and other Muslims in the West already will become susceptible to pressure from ISIS to become recruits for its cause.
ISIS itself is aware of this, and has already prepared propaganda designed to work toward that end, as well as to spread fear about the refugees in general.
A three-year-old child (my oldest granddaughter, for example) could figure this out. So what does that say about the right-wingnuts' reaction to Syrian refugees? Either they have the brains of two-year-olds, or they are terrible liars when it comes to hiding their true motives. I'll give you a hint about which of those possibilities is more likely than not to be true: though there's much evidence to the contrary, I don't think they have the brains of two-year-olds.
I think that they are terrible, dreadful, horrible liars when it comes to the real reason they want to keep out Syrian refugees. It's the same basic reason for which they hate the President: race. Conservatism in its present form is nothing more than a desire to preserve white male Christian power, even if it has to be done at gunpoint in order to be successful. This is why some wingnuts are calling for the admission of only Christian refugees (as if the bigotry of such a suggestion could go unnoticed).
It is also why the wingnuts don't care if gun rights laws have the effect of arming terrorists. Don't believe me? Take a look. Take another look.
And it's why, to finally get around to the Colorado Springs shootings, nobody is calling for registration or internment camps for white male Christians. Because those shootings are a terrorist act. Period. It's time to start telling like it is, instead of allowing the media to soften our thoughts about white male Christian violence in this country by calling the perpetrators "reclusive," "odd," or even "deranged." As if the propensity to express one's individuality with the barrel of a gun was some cute personal idiosyncrasy.
You want to find a way to push back against all of this garbage that threatens to destroy not just the nation, but the world?
Be like Michael Moore.
Be like this Manhattan hardware store.
At the very least, be like this Scottish newspaper, which is as nationalistic as they come but doesn't use that fact as an excuse for doing the right thing.
And fight the hypocrisy of our lunatic right-wing with three simple words to Syrian refugees:
Welcome to America.
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