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Late on Election Day, Donald Trump cut the page on his website that detailed his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the country. The page had been up since December 7, 2015. It was a cornerstone to his long, vulgar presidential campaign, and was largely a reaction to the Paris attack last year.
It always seemed like the kind of thing that was rushed, something that he shouldn’t have said, and wouldn’t have if he had a staff worth listening to. But he did it anyway, and then doubled down on it.
That page disappearing from his website has given some people cause to stop and wonder if Trump isn’t going to be as awful as they had expected. Maybe some of his campaign promises were just outright lies he told in order to sell himself to people who are afraid of Muslims, Mexicans, and/or any of the other people Trump has spent the last year and a half denigrating.
Maybe he’s finally pivoting to more moderate positions, trying to heal some of the wounds, or reach across the isle. Or maybe he’s just trying to be more politically correct.
None of it matters, because whether the ban is on his website or not, nobody is going to forget about it. His own supporters aren’t going to let him forget about it. The fact is, Republicans won a majority in both the House and the Senate, meaning they can pretty much pass whatever laws they want.
The ban, or something very similar to it, is still going to be on the table. Even if it doesn’t pass, it’s not going to change the fact that Islamaphobia was bolstered by Trump’s win, and if the ban doesn’t go through, some other actions against Muslim Americans almost surely will.
