Near
shooting site, views of Republican debate shaped by events
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[December 16, 2015]
By Idrees Ali and Alana Wise
ANAHEIM, Calif./MORENO VALLEY, Calif.
(Reuters) - Omar Elhanafy, vice president of the Muslim student
organization at California State University, San Bernardino, hasn't
followed the 2016 U.S. presidential election closely.
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But Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s comments about Muslims
following this month’s fatal shooting spree at a San Bernardino
holiday party left Elhanafy, 20, feeling he needed to watch the
televised Republican debate on Tuesday night.
"Trump, he kind of has a really powerful voice at the moment and the
things that he is saying are kind of scary and kind of shocking to
me," Elhanafy said. After the Dec. 2 shootings, Trump proposed a ban
on Muslims entering the United States.
In California’s so-called Inland Empire, which includes the towns
where San Bernardino shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik
lived and committed their deadly attack, many voters watched the
debate through the prism of recent events, but they drew a broad
range of conclusions.
Hayden Martin, vice president of the Mojave Desert Young
Republicans, attended a debate-watching gathering with fellow
Republicans at a Mexican restaurant in Moreno Valley, southeast of
San Bernardino. He wanted to hear the Republican contenders address
the issues of gun control and what he called radical Islamic
terrorism.
Martin, 21, said he was hoping they would speak more candidly about
terrorism than President Barack Obama had after the couple, inspired
by Islamic State, massacred 14 people in San Bernardino.
"Instead of saying radical Islamic terrorism, (the Obama
administration is) saying gun control. It's disappointing," Martin
said. "Radical Islam is a threat to us and the gun control narrative
isn't a narrative we should continue."
Riverside County Republican Party Chairman Scott Mann, who also
serves as mayor of the city of Menifee, said he was “looking for
every single one of those candidates to acknowledge what happened,
acknowledge that it’s real, and acknowledge that we’ve got to do
something about it.”
That wasn’t how Bushra Bangee, 19, saw things. She was frustrated by
how much of the debate focused on Muslims at the expense of other
issues.
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Watching the debate over pizza with other Muslim students at the
Southern California offices of the Council on Islamic Relations, the
urban planning major at the University of California, Irvine, noted
that the Paris climate talks, which just concluded, weren't a
subject of serious discussion. “What about that?” she asked.
"Climate change is considered the largest national security threat.”
Amal Ali, 22, vice president of the Muslim student association at
University of California, Riverside, also wondered about security
issues that weren't mentioned.
"Where is the discussion on national security with regards to the
Sandy Hook shooting or the Planned Parenthood shooting or any of
these things?” she asked, citing two shooting sprees without an
Islamist connection.
Ali said she ultimately found the debate exhausting. "Who has the
energy and ... the capacity to not only listen to this kind of
vitriolic rhetoric but also find time to mourn the tragedy itself?"
she asked. "My priority was in helping my community and mourning the
tragedy that happened in my backyard.”
Martin, the Young Republicans activist, thought the debates were
helpful for offering insight into the candidates. "I don't want to
vote for someone like Obama,” he said, “who seemed like a good idea
at the time."
Martin said that since the attacks, he has noticed his peers have
shown more interest in politics.
"'Something's got to change' - that's a narrative I've heard from
friends and coworkers," he said.
(Editing by Sue Horton and Howard Goller)
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