As I have made very clear in the past, I have a deep disregard for Islam’s value system. It is the antithesis of Western liberal values. In its widespread conservative form it is authoritarian, misogynist, and intolerant. From a literary sense Islam is the dumbest religion. Its stories are at a very basic level. And of course Wahabism and Salafism have unleashed a horrible threat on the world in the form of radical islamic terrorism.

That said, I have long supported Obama’s way of dealing with the terrorist threat. Average citizens like us can and will have debates about the religion of islam, but as OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT POLICY, we don’t need to say “radical Islamic terrorism” because it insults our allies in the muslim world and incites across the board suspicion of all muslims in our own society. There are hundreds of millions of muslims who oppose terrorism, and who are our natural allies in this war. There are muslim soldiers fighting and dying alongside Americans every day. It seems clear to me insulting their entire religion directly AS OFFICIAL POLICY will not work in fighting Islamic terrorism, it will only alienate those on our side and make our job harder.

It has to be noted that many of those muslims on our side of the war on terror still represent societies that practice authoritarianism, misogyny, and intolerance. The Kurds and Egyptians are some of the worst offenders of FGM on the planet. As with violent terrorism, we won’t get them to stop these heinous non-violent cultural practices by insulting their religion directly. What we do is condemn, loudly and clearly, the offensive act itself, not the entire religion. An excellent example of how to do this is Let Girls Learn.

Condemn the misogyny, condemn the child marriages, condemn the intolerance, and CONDEMN AND KILL THE TERRORISTS. But don’t make it national policy to condemn the entire religion. This balance will hopefully be the key to bringing islam into the 21st Century.

Which brings us to Trump. His comments about banning all muslims and blaming all muslims for not turning in the bad ones is the most un-American thing I have heard from a prominent politician in my lifetime. This man’s sheer ignorance is frightening to behold. For all the horrible threat that radical Islamic terrorism is, I honestly believe Trump is a greater threat to the world. Radical islam is not an existential threat to our society, but Trump is. His casual recklessness would undo military alliances, dangerously destabilizing Europe and Asia. He economic incompetence on trade would crash the global economy. He would cancel the Paris Accord, the bilateral US-China emissions agreement, clean energy R&D, and all the Obama era environmental regulations, perhaps dooming future generations to dangerous andf irreversible climate change. We won’t even get into domestic policy here. It is unimaginably dangerous to put the immense power and responsibility of the presidency in the hands of someone who has displayed so much pettiness, ignorance, racism, mendacity and conspiratorial delusions. It’s not too late for the republican party leadership to put their nation first, indeed the entire world first, and refuse to nominate this incredibly dangerous and unstable idiot.