Members of Trump’s N.H. leadership team share anti-Muslim beliefs voiced by supporter at rally
The vicious, anti-Muslim sentiments expressed by a questioner at the Donald Trump rally last night in Rochester are not exceptional among Trump supporters. Even those selected to serve as Trump’s New Hampshire leadership team have shared similar rhetoric in public forums and on social media.
‘A Muslim radical bent on collapsing our country’
Jerry DeLemus, co-chair of the NH Veterans for Trump coalition, describes the president as a “Muslim radical” intent on destroying the country. “Obama is leading a revolution in our country without a shot being fired. This is what the communists promised us,” DeLemus wrote on Facebook. “I do however feel Obama is a Muslim radical bent on collapsing our country. We are nearly finished with the help of the Republicans.”
DeLemus has announced plans to hold a “Draw Muhammad” contest in New Hampshire, emulating a similar event promoted by anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller in Texas that ended in the shooting deaths of two gunmen. (Even Trump thought that was a bad idea. “It really looks like she’s just taunting everybody,” he said on Fox and Friends. “What is she doing drawing Muhammad?”)
“I am planning this to push back against those that are trying to impose Sharia and or believe that it is justified to kill those that don’t accept their beliefs,” DeLemus explained. “I love Pamela Geller,” he added, “she is honest and courageous.”
‘It’s time for a little bit of intolerance’
DeLemus is not alone. The Belknap County chair of Trump’s New Hampshire leadership team, Josh Youssef, describes himself as “a straight, white, conservative, hard-working, gun-toting, fundamentalist, Bible-believing evangelical Christian!”
Youssef says Americans should be less tolerant of Muslims. “Islam is a Satan-inspired and FALSE religion. That is my 2 cents. … ‘Tolerance’ is what got America into this most precarious situation. It’s time for a little bit of intolerance, and a whole lot of political incorrectness,” he wrote on Facebook.
“People want tolerance?” he asked. “They can feel free to believe in Allah, the fake God, the ‘god’ of death, destruction, polygamy, and all things anti-christ…and I’ll be tolerant of that. But I demand they be tolerant of my right to ridicule it!”
Like Trump, and the anti-Muslim supporter at the Trump rally, Youssef insists the president was not born in America. He calls the president “a godless agent of satan” and has made a 22-minute YouTube video that he claims proves the president’s birth certificate “is a complete and abject forgery.”
“Unfortunately, the American people are so enamored by this guy, so enamored with his rhetoric and his speech-giving and his ability to make people feel good and his ability to think on behalf of non-thinking Americans who just don’t care about their own destiny that they’re willing to overlook these things,” he said.