On the same day that president-elect Donald Trump said people should not fear him, he appointed Steve Bannon, the former president of Brietbart News, to the position of chief strategist and senior counselor. Talk about sending a mixed message.
Brietbart News, according to the New York Times ...
… has been denounced as misogynist, racist and xenophobic, and it served as a clearinghouse for attacks on Mr. Trump’s adversaries, spreading unsubstantiated rumors about Hillary Clinton’s health and undermining its own reporter, Michelle Fields, after she accused Corey Lewandowski, then Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, of assaulting her.
That’s a lot to work with, but in reviewing why Americans might not be soothed by Trump’s remarks on Sunday, or by Bannon’s appointment, let’s pick one subject Bannon and Breitbart focused on over the last few months: Khzir Khan, the Pakistani immigrant whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan lost his life in Iraq. Khan spoke at the Democratic National Convention in July. From an article that appeared in Breitbart:
“Notwithstanding his war-hero son’s genuinely patriotic example, Khizr M. Khan has published papers supporting the supremacy of Islamic law over ‘man-made’ Western law — including the very Constitution he championed in his Democratic National Convention speech attacking GOP presidential nod Donald Trump.
That’s a lie, one of many that made its way on to the Brietbart site.
The Council of American-Islamic Relations called Bannon an "anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist and White nationalist alt-right extremist."
If in fact Trump wanted to unite the country in the days leading up to his inauguration, he would have left people like Bannon behind. Instead, by rewarding them and their divisive work, Trump ensures that people will remain afraid and open to attack, just as the Khans were.