*As Donald Trump continues to willfully distance himself from the Muslim community, potential voters and those in his own party, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is calling the GOP presidential frontrunner out with comparisons made to ISIS.
Referencing a column the basketball legend penned for Time on Wednesday, The Huffington Post noted Abdul-Jabbar’s observation in likening Trump ‘s culture of fear via intimidation, lies and downright discrimination to the physical terrorism the Islamic State is currently using on international adversaries.
Abdul-Jabbar goes as far as bringing in Webster Dictionary’s definition of terrorism — “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal; the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion” — to give the following food for thought:
“If violence can be an abstraction — and it can; that’s what a threat is — the Trump campaign meets this definition.”
As a result, Abdul-Jabbar paints Trump as a political terrorist that executes offensive verbal jabs to create fear with the hope of that fear translating into votes. In Abdul-Jabbar eyes, the method mirrors the blueprint laid by ISIS to sue panic and horror as factors toward gaining the dominant upper hand over enemies.
“[Trump has taken advantage of] misinformation, half-truths and deception in order to gain access to a position that should only be held by those who would be repulsed by that strategy,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote, while labeling Trump’s supporters as “brainwashed” and classifying their support of the real estate mogul “harmful to the country.”
Abdul-Jabbar’s column comes just three days after Trump called for Muslims to be barred from “entering the United States.” The sports great joins among a slew of Muslim-American athletes that Trump seemed to have no knowledge of when he criticized a speech President Barack Obama gave detailing his strategy for dealing with ISIS as well as encouraging Americans to not discriminate against Muslims.
The Post notes that Trump and Abdul-Jabbar are no strangers to each other, considering the pair has been at odds with each other over various topics the summer, including the importance of free speech.
To read Abdul-Jabbar’s Time column in its entirety, click here.
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