Ep 260. - Charlie Kirk - is the US heading for Civil War? Imam Tom Facchine
Imam Tom Facchine joins us to discuss the MAGA Right’s stance on 9/11, the fallout from Charlie Kirk’s death for the far right, the public’s growing rejection of Israeli propaganda, and the urgent need for Muslims to build strong and lasting institutions.
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Transcript - This is an AI generated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation.
Introduction
0:00
And so when Charlie Kirk is assassinated by like a one ina- million shop, these are not conspiracy theories. This is legitimate questioning. You know,
0:08
after the death of Charlie Kirk, we saw people lose their jobs, TV anchors, TV presenters because they made a comment. When people talk about political violence has no place,
0:18
they really just mean people who are citizens who look American, who act American. Candace Owens has been poking holes in the narrative of what exactly were being told about the murder in
0:28
the context of Tucker Carlson releasing his 9/11 series, poking holes in the received
0:33
narrative that was established by the 9/11 Commission. If they actually figure out that the Islamophobia industry is a coordinated Israeli campaign, Israel doesn't care about
0:41
the Bill of Rights. Israel doesn't care about free speech. Israel would happily do away with every single right and the freedom to criticize Israel should not be conflated with anti-semitism.
0:54
Imam Tom Fakini. Asalam allayikum and welcome back to the thinking Muslim. Pleasure to be with
1:01
you as always. It was great to be with you here in Washington DC. We're racking up the cities. We're ticking them off one at a time. One at a time. I think you you've probably racked up the
1:10
most number of cities even Sammy doesn't have. I intend to hold to keep that title in. Well,
1:16
I want to talk today about the the death of Charlie Kirk. uh the murder of Charlie Kirk, the uh what's come out as a result of that, the right and the left here in America. Uh I want to
1:28
sort of understand the politics and where it is at the moment because it seems very feeal to me. Um I
1:34
mean over the past year we have seen a wave of pro Palestine voices silenced at university campuses
1:40
and workplaces in the media. Um and it seems like you know it's the right that's doing this.
1:47
you know, after the death of Charlie Kirk, we saw um uh people lose their jobs. Very very important
1:56
uh TV anchors, TV presenters lost their job because they made a comment potentially. Some of
The Right’s cancel culture
2:04
those comments weren't particularly harsh comments either about Charlie Kirk. Like what's happening there about when when when you know when looking at uh just the right and cancel culture? Yeah.
2:16
All right. This one. Alhamdulillah. Um, we have I mean there's a reason why Charlie Kirk's murder
2:24
has been so much in the news and so much debated because it touches on several flash points in both
2:30
American culture, history, and politics. Um, every side is trying to, and there's more than just two
2:36
sides, is trying to wrestle and wrangle over what exactly it means, who exactly is responsible. That's why the uncertainty around who his gunman is or who his attacker is or the potential people
2:47
that might have put him up to it. If you're following Candace Owens, Candace Owens has been trying has been poking holes and she she was very close to Charlie Kirk uh poking holes in the
2:57
official um narrative of what exactly we're being told about the murder. This is coming within the
3:04
context of Tucker Carlson releasing his 911 series uh poking holes in the received narrative that was
3:10
established by the 911 commission. We've said for over a decade that we live in times of a crisis of
3:17
truth. Um but this is starting to really come to bear on uh on just about everything that happens.
3:25
So, you know, why does Netanyahu take to Twitter and tweet about Charlie Kirk's murder before
3:31
anyone in the United States does something that was not lost on Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens,
3:37
right? So, there is a lot of suspicion in the air. There's a lot of tension. There's a lot of uncertainty. Um, there's a lot of distrust and I think that's fairly ubiquitous. I think
3:47
that that's not a leftright issue that there's a lot of distrust. We're in an election season where we see the Democrats are sort of sitting on the fence with Mam Dani's uh potential election,
3:57
I think, becoming the symbolic lightning rod of this dynamic where the Democrats are playing a
4:02
game of chicken with their own base, much like they did in 2024 with the Harris campaign, whose
4:08
tonedeaf book recently came out, where they're trying to wonder, can we get away with rolling
4:13
out the same bad politics of, you know, well, at least we're not Trump or you should be thankful
4:19
we're not worse. That's been their political game for quite some time. Are they able to get away with it or are they going to have to come around and actually reconcile themselves with the ground
4:29
uh the grassroots ground swell movement of people that are fed up and want actual substance and not
4:35
just symbol, right? All of these things are in play. It's an extremely volatile time. Political
4:40
violence, you know, people have made sort of these these comments and statements about, oh, political violence has no place, etc. That's irrelevant. I think that the the phenomenon that we're seeing
4:51
historically is that political violence does eb and flow. And if we had been previously existing
4:57
in a space of insulated or um not so much domestic political violence, and let's caveat and bracket
5:04
this in the terms that there's always political violence. If you're a political prisoner, you're experiencing political violence. If you're someone who was in Abu Grae or in Guantanamo, you're a
5:12
victim of political violence. If you're somebody who's in Philstine, there's political violence. So it's an extremely tiny scope when people talk about um you know political violence has no place
5:23
they really just mean people who are citizens who look American who act American who you wouldn't
5:29
expect right the fully human right like Tal Assad you know talks about the human of human rights
5:34
and how the human rights regime creates people who are considered fully human or subhumans we expect and we've been trained to expect political violence against the subhumans and the less than
5:44
human but when people get scandalized is when political violence touches those who are supposed
5:50
to be considered fully human under the regime of ideology that we live. So that's disturbing,
5:56
but it's also not precedented. Things were like this in the '60s and the 70s. Um, you know, we're seeing a I think a similar uh volatility of like what uh American um you know, political
6:08
culture experienced in the ' 60s and ' 70s. And it seems like things can get really bad. Um,
6:14
but it also seems like there are interesting opportunities for things to get better. And the
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urgency of the moment cannot be understated. This we live in an extremely urgent moment where we're
6:26
feeling the pain of all of the lack of strategy and organizing that we haven't done in the last
6:31
20 years. But at the same time, it's that window of opportunity has not completely shut and closed
6:36
on us. And the us here is not just the Muslim community but anybody who wants you know the the
6:42
common thread running through these things. And I think the common thread running through many of the questions uh that we have today is what what type of relationship to government and society do
6:53
you want like what forget left right like a lot of these categorizations are actually hindrances to bigger issues. What about good governance? What about responsive government? What about a
7:03
society that works for the average person versus elite capture? Right? So all of these things what
7:08
what about a society or a a a society in which your law and legal system and political system
7:13
can be exploited by a foreign nation right which is what Israel is doing and they've done it with amazing effectiveness compared to other groups but other groups are taking note and like hinduta like
7:23
they're actually like taking notes and they're seeing oh that's how you exploit the American system we're going to do the same thing. So all of these things are in play. Um and there hasn't
7:32
yet emerged a new categorization. But one of the things that is in play is the very categorization
7:39
of political life itself. Left, right, woke, anti-woke. Um some of the questions we're going
7:45
to cover scramble these categories. Now the right is woke. Now the right is doing cancel culture. Doesn't surprise me. Doesn't it shouldn't surprise anybody who's paid attention. But the opportunity
7:54
that's there is to scramble the very limiting and unimaginative categories of conservative,
8:02
liberal, Democrat, Republican, left, right, um, to get at something that is much more fundamental
8:08
about how society is constructed and what are the results and outcomes that are delivered to a common person. Assalamu alaykum. I need your help. Our videos are currently being suppressed on
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and keep an eye out for our shows. I want to pick up on some of those threads that you you mentioned
9:01
there. Um the rights council culture like explain that to our viewers because you especially those
9:08
outside the US, we may not been following uh the detail events. I mean, Jimmy Kimmel is it
Jimmy Kimmel
9:14
uh the comedian whose whose show was dropped. I think Pam Bondi, the attorney general,
9:19
uh made a statement to say that, you know, uh if anyone's if if any employer finds an employee
9:26
who's sent out a message, a tweet or Facebook, whatever, uh that's um uh disrespectful. I
9:32
think she used the term disrespectful of um of the death of of Charlie Kirk. that person should be uh
9:40
should be reprimanded or sacked by the employee. I mean there is a a right cancel culture here.
9:45
Yeah. Absolutely. So we see we see the cancel. So first of all there's there's a phenomenon that people have observed before and that each party criticizes the other party for what it would do
9:55
if it were in power. They take turns, right? So you know when the Democrats are in power,
10:00
they do the same things, right? Right. And then the right all of a sudden they fall back on the the legitimating discourse or the the discourse of these supposedly sacred ideals like free free
10:10
speech and you know limited government and these sorts of things. But when they're in power they do the same thing, right? And um uh the same thing when out of power the Democrats you know
10:19
bite on their knuckles about um whatever it is. It could be fixing the election or they do the same
10:25
things like there might be degree or there might be different tactics that are favored by each side but in large part and this is not my observation these are other political analysts observation
10:36
there's almost been um an attempt to outregulate one another right so take gerrymandering take the
10:42
redistricting take um the way that sabotage right plays a role in the political culture of like how
10:48
budgets get passed and and appointments and things of this nature take even that when you're handing
10:53
over power from one administration to another that sometimes uh the outgoing administration will simply just try to gut everything and sabotage for the next one in order to be able to say,
11:02
"Oh yeah, look, you guys are incompetent." Right? That these are dirty tricks that each party uses.
11:09
Okay. Um what the woke right or whatever to call it the cancel culture of the right because these
11:15
are two different things. Some people when they say woke right, they're actually talking about Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson and the people who have woken up to Israeli control of the United
11:23
States and the manip manipulation of of the American system and uh and and institutions
11:29
by is by Israel. But when we talk about cancel culture, we're talking about pretty much two
11:34
things. One is this suppression that you've talked about, whether it's in culture, entertainment,
11:39
anybody who's critical of Trump, we know that Trump has extremely thin skin. He uh he's very petty. He's very vindictive. We were just talking with uh with a professor the other night about
11:49
the fear of um doing something that seems like a slight to Mark Rubio or the department of this or
11:56
the department of that because they will actually be so petty as to go after you. And they're going
12:01
to go after you not on the they're not going to say that it's because oh well you hurt my feelings and so I'm going after you but they'll find some regulation. They'll find some rule and
12:09
say oh you're in violation of this that or the third. That's one thing, but the other thing is anti-semitism and anti-semitism being the new McCarthyism, right? So, this is the big thing even
12:19
more significant than um whatever suppression of of anti-Trump voices or criticism of the
12:25
government because no one talks about that. Well, no one talks about it and it's just more it's more systematic systemic. It's more structured. Um it's more entrenched like so these are these are levers
12:35
that have been put in place for decades. Yeah. Right. um and they are ones that are, you know,
12:42
more bipartisan. They're actually more bipartisan, right? Depending that these levers are in place, you know, almost no matter who is in power. So, the idea of hauling um university presidents in
12:54
front of a congressional hearing and doing this very McCarthy-esque interrogation of what are you doing for anti-semitism? Right? That is this is cancel culture. Right? Now,
13:06
the interesting thing is that this is one of the many things that's producing a split and a fissure
13:11
and an opportunity because you do have people that are committed to certain ideals on the right and the base and even some of the politicians that are saying this is not free speech. We should
13:19
have the the freedom to criticize Israel and the freedom to criticize Israel should not be conflated with anti-semitism. And we're even against the redefining of anti-semitism along
13:28
uh nation state lines that would basically make criticism of a foreign nation a hate crime.
13:33
the IH. Exactly. Exactly. So there are people on that side. Um but so you're seeing this this
13:41
this war. This is, you know, it's not every day and it's not every administration that
13:46
um university presidents are called in and bullied in the way that they have been or their funds have
13:54
been completely stripped because of these dynamics or even tenure professors something like tenure
14:00
that used to be sacred um in in Pennsylvania I believe at Muenberg College you know in the
14:05
Lehigh Valley there was a tenure professor who was sacked for normal political views. So, one
14:12
of the many things at stake right now is where is this going to go? People on the left, it's it's a
14:17
somewhat superficial take, but it does have truth in it that we're going to fascism or what we're up against fascism. There's truth in that. That's not all that's going on. But but there is truth in
14:26
that when it comes to the suppression of disscent and Israel and their agents playing a role in
14:32
bolstering that type of fascist response. Israel doesn't care about the bill the Bill of Rights. Israel doesn't care about the First Amendment. Israel doesn't care about free speech. Israel
14:40
would happily do away with every single right that American civil society is supposed to have in
14:46
order to insulate itself from criticism, critique, and to undermine any sort of resistance to uh to
14:51
the occupation. They'd happily do that like in a second. So on the disappointing side or in the the
14:59
upsetting side, we've got um we've seen the bare face of this maybe more than we have um because
15:06
people are it's this interesting dynamic where people are waking up to it and calling it out and criticizing it across the board on left and right. But the you know I think in in one of the previous
15:17
interviews we're talking about the difference between power and perception of power. One of the things that the Israeli lobby and Israel itself does um so insistently is attempting to project
15:28
absolute control and absolute power. Yeah, this is partly why October 7th required from their logic,
15:34
from their perspective, the most brutal genocidal response possible because we can't have even the
15:40
perception that we're weak and that we could fall. Right? And this is why Apac they go very, you know, um they go off the rails and go after people that even even descent like an iota like
15:51
the tiniest amount from the official line. And they're constantly feeding these politicians these purity tests of resolutions and like well how do you stand on this and have you made an
16:00
a resolution in favor of us in the last month or two so that the second that someone steps even a
16:06
hair out of line they punish them as hard as they can and that way they achieve this perception of well you can't go against APAC or you can't go against the Israeli lobby so right now it's almost
16:15
like you know you take the the example in the Quran how unhinged he becomes at the end things
16:22
escalate like at first he's accusing MS of trying to uh push them out of their lands then when the
16:29
magicians accept Islam and follow MS. He accuses MS of teaching the magicians, right? It's like
16:36
pure conspiracy theory. And then they just want to go. They just want to leave, right? But it's not
16:42
even that's not even palatable for because of what it would mean to the perception of his power. And
16:47
so he's like, "No, no, no. We can't just let you go. We we're going to follow you and we're going to put out the announcement." And the way that Allah the words that Allah us in the Quran, that's
16:54
a small band of people that is escaping him. But he's such an arrogant megalomaniac, right?
17:00
He can't even let them go. He has to set out set out a broadcast to other people to come and
17:06
chase them down. And that's actually ends up what being his demise. Um, and so you see that you see
17:12
the the lashing out of the vested interests and the powerful who are maybe more afraid than ever
17:25
of losing their grip. I think there's this sense of losing the grip and we can even say perhaps a
17:32
final showdown because when it comes to US support for Israel, I mean many people, many commentators,
17:39
analysts have already said Israel's lost the war that they can't they can't realistic realistically
17:45
expect to to keep this up or even the viability of the the Zionist project, the occupation itself
17:52
um will not last will not survive everything that has happened. It's just a matter of time. So,
17:59
if you have a dying entity like that, you can expect there to be a lot of lashing out um and
18:08
trying to cause as much damage as possible on the way down. So, there's this sense that that's what
18:13
we're that we are we're seeing. That's why we have things that are more public than they've
18:18
ever been. You see, you're talking about um CBS News, is it that has Barry Weiss now like running
18:25
running its its news and you've got Bill Aman who's putting out the call for anyone to come
18:32
and run against Mom Donnie. You've got Ellison and all these people who are now they they've bought
18:38
up Tik Tok and they've got the algorithm and they've got the board under control of of how Tik Tok is going to be um experienced by users from the US. It's more public than it's ever been. Um,
18:51
and there's so much scrutiny. There's more scrutiny than there's ever been. And more people are against it and aware of it than have ever been. Um, so that's at least my sense of it
19:02
that we we stand on a precipice of volatility, of tremendous opportunity, and potentially
19:09
tremendous hardship. Um, but we have to have um optimism, I think, in what can be accomplished.
19:16
Is America on the cusp of a civil war? I don't because war has changed. Here's the thing. Like,
USA Civil war?
19:21
you know, what is war anymore? You know, one of we were having a discussion with the guest from another program and the claim that battlefield deaths have gone down since World War II or
19:32
whatever. Who fights on a battlefield anymore? No one fights on a battlefield anymore. The nature of war has changed. Um, you know, things continue to be externalized in creative ways in order
19:43
to hide them. Out of sight, out of mind. That's the principle of the neoliberal scheme. Um, if
19:48
you can have slaves in all but the word, whether we're talking wage slaves or whether we talking
19:55
um required labor of prisoners, it's out of sight. It's out of mind. Guantan political prisoners got
20:01
Guantanamo Bay, it's out of sight. It's out of mind. So, the way that societ like society and institutions and power have gotten shrewd enough that they're not interested in battlefield deaths
20:11
anymore. They're interested in Epstein Island now. Like instead of like having a a formal battlefield
20:19
confrontation with their opposition, uh they're going to invite a promising young leader from the
20:25
opposition to a compromising situation and then blackmail them. So, is that not war? I mean, it's
20:30
a type of war. Um it's war by other means. And so, this type of thing has been going on for some time
20:38
and we're here. So, I I don't necessarily I'm not one of these preppers or these uh doomsday people
20:44
who who think that a formal civil war with with all these, you know, the guns and the militias and things like that. I don't know that I see that as as inevitable or likely or anything.
20:54
But I do think that there is a fundamental and entrenched struggle for what is going
21:00
to to survive and what is the vision of what the United States is going to be. the broken promises,
21:05
the unfulfilled ideals, the hypocrisy, all of this is already being continuously struggled
21:10
over and people have died because of it. To me, that's already a status quo that is warlike,
21:17
even if it's not a formally declared war. So, um, who's going to win at the end? I either the
21:23
entrenched interests and powers are going to get their way and they're going to only, you know, beat back the ground swell of grassroots movement and reassert their control. In which case,
21:36
probably you're going to see the US end up like Europe. That's my, you know, crystal ball that I
21:42
don't really believe in. That in the sense that the United States will become less relevant as China becomes more relevant. um the United States will cut off the H-1B visa and we'll cut off a lot
21:52
of the things that gave it a pipeline uh of of rejuvenation. We have this phenomenon that we
21:57
call now uh downward mobility where now you've got people who are middle class or their parents are
22:02
middle class now they're becoming working class right that this is something that's a phenomenon that actually people are are are writing about in the US people will continue to flee the country
22:12
move abroad go to greener pastures America will end up like a Germany or no offense the UK or
22:18
something like this um that it won't be in my estimation the hegeimon that occur currently is
22:26
I think that the time the time of US hijgemony is also drawing to a close that's one scenario that's if they win that's if the powers of be win because they would rather you know
22:36
we say cut your nose off despite your face like they would rather jeopardize their own stature
22:42
um in order to protect that fft and keep the you know the enrichment flowing to the top 1% and
22:49
all these other uh dependencies that they have the other scenario is that there is something
22:56
like a a triumph in part or in whole from this grassroots movement. And then you fall under
23:03
the the the discipline of history and revolution and post-revolutionary um movements which is who
23:11
wins out because the how history works is that revolutions are always broad coalitions of very
23:18
very different actors and movements and people of various motivations. But then in postrevolution
23:24
there's a jockeying and there someone has to win and who's gonna outmaneuver everybody else. If you take the Iranian example, right? It's like the the anti the anti-Sha movement was a very eclectic
23:34
movement, right? But the the Kmeni types, him and his cadre outmaneuvered everybody else, even the
23:40
Shariatis and the Islamic Marxists and things like that. So that's a whole different scenario
Charlie Kirk’s assassination
23:46
and Alan's best. And where does all this intersect with back to Charlie Kirk? Yes, with Charlie Kirk.
23:52
The this is why they're fighting over what it means. Yeah. Because a lot of people are extremely
23:58
suspicious about Israel's potential hand in this assassination. Really? And do you believe any of
24:03
that? Me? It's possible. It's plausible. The thing is even if it's not true, Israel is so discredited and has bragged about such behavior in the past that there's as we say in
24:15
in in like the person is likely guilty. It's it's possible. They're they're a legitimate suspect.
24:24
this. That's why it's not an accident or I should say it's it's synergistic that Tucker Carlson is doing his 911 series now because you know things that people used to bat away like the you know oh
24:36
the dancing Israelis and people used to say that it was a conspiracy theory the art the Israeli
24:41
art students that were spying you know on the day of 911 and before and some of the connections who
24:46
knew what when why didn't they move right all these things you know Tucker's network is going
24:51
into them people. Uh the JFK files and JFK not, you know, we still don't know who killed JFK or
24:59
why, right? Um all of these things, we live in the internet age. We live in the social media age. You
25:06
can't hide these things. It used to be cuz like let's let's take a different example. FDR, okay,
25:11
wants to go to wants to enter World War II. He's got a problem. Americans don't want to enter World War II. They see it as Europe's problem. Very isolationist, maybe the most isolationist time.
25:22
There's a memo that admits, it's an internal memo that says if we were to gather all of the ships at
25:31
Pearl Harbor and provoke a Japanese attack, it would likely enable us with the political will to get involved in the war, right? And that's exactly what happened. Now, that doesn't prove
25:42
intentionality or motive. Like, it could have been like, you know, maybe it ended up being way worse,
25:47
you know, than anybody could have thought. Um, but the fact that these are the types of decisions
25:53
that are made back then once those documents got declassified, people don't care anymore. You know,
25:59
you can't touch the memory of World War II in the United States. That was still a time when we're taught about these things in such lock step that, you know, descent is very meaningless. But
26:08
we don't live in those times anymore. We live in the times where people are still angry about
26:14
JFK. People want to know what happened. People s suspect that Israel might have had a hand in it.
26:20
And then now they're just connecting dots. And now we see there's the attack on the USS Cole.
26:25
And now we see that there is um you know that Israel has done assassinations all over the
26:32
world. And Israel has attacked sovereign nations all over the world. uh for decades without any
26:38
sort of pretense of having any legitimacy through law to do so. That there are American citizens
26:45
that go to the Palestinian Americans that go to the West Bank and are killed by Israel. Um that
26:50
there are American activists like Rachel Corey that go and try to stand up and do the right thing and are killed by Israel. Right? And so and then there's 911 and Netanyahu brags that
26:59
911 was good for Israel. These are facts. This is not conspiracy theories. So people in they have all of this in a montage in like a Twitter video or YouTube video in front of them,
27:09
they're not going to forget. And so when Charlie Kirk all of a sudden is assassinated by like what
27:18
a one ina million shot from a 22year-old, you have no idea like what type of skill that type of shot demonstrates to hit someone in the neck from the from the distance that he hit him with.
27:27
It's suspicious when the first thing that happens, as Candace Owens pointed out, the guys bleeding
27:34
on the ground and some of the people on stage are taking down the cameras and removing the SD cards
27:41
from the cameras. Go and check it out. It's on It's on film. These are these are suspicious
27:47
things. when people close to Charlie Kirk and with no reason to lie unanimously say that he
27:55
was starting to come around and feel different about Israel. These are not conspiracy theories,
28:02
right? This is legitimate questioning. And we know anybody who's know who knows the history of the FBI, COINTELPro, CIA, they know that the even idea of conspiracy theory was something that was
28:12
pedled in order to delegitimize and dismiss a lot of things that are true. a lot of things that the
28:17
US I mean to be just frank I mean if we were to put on hadith glasses and say well this narrator
28:24
this raw of this hadith this narrator of this hadith has a reputation for being truthful and honest and this this other one has a reputation of being dishonest all of these characters the
28:33
CIA the FBI the US government Israel they are liars they've been lying constantly for decades
28:39
and decades and decades this is what they've been doing and the average American knows that
28:45
at at this point and the average American doesn't trust the institutions or the politicians and so what does it mean is precisely uh it's it's the question now who's behind it and how long are
28:58
the American people going to tolerate being lied to being treated like they're idiots the Epstein
29:04
files is also in play here right the Epstein files have not been released everybody wants the Epstein files to be released right all of this comes together um so it's it's significant
29:15
I mean this is this is if certain connections are made or if certain information comes to light and
29:23
this turns out to be something that Israel had a hand in right then this just further erodess
29:29
the credibility and the sustainability of the occupation because I mean there is a um within the
MAGA anti-zionists
29:36
MAGA movement u there is now a a subgroup I mean it's substantial Tucker Carlson Candy and others
29:45
are now proponents of this sort of anti-ionism almost within within that MAGA movement. Um
29:51
uh and then of course you've got on the flip side you've got the mainstream uh Republicans,
29:57
the at least the elected politicians who remain very much firmly pro- Zionist who remain
30:03
uh who are proponents of of of silencing voices. Yes. Uh across the across the country. Yes. Uh
30:10
on university campuses and beyond. Um, how much should or can we shape that first uh section, that
30:19
first category of of of MAGA support? I'm going to read you something. This is why I'm I swear I'm not that ignorant. No, no, no, no, no. There's someone something someone sent me today that they
30:28
were, you know, we're here in Washington DC. They walked by Marjorie Taylor Green's office. Yeah.
30:34
And what did they have on the door? Like what was actually on the door of the office? It was um here
30:44
we go. I'm gonna read the sign that's on Marjorie Taylor Green's door. No foreign lobbying. If you
30:50
enter this office seeking funds on behalf of a foreign nation, you may be in violation of 22 US
30:57
code yada yada yada foreign agency registration act. America first. That's what they're afraid
31:04
of. Yeah. That's what they're telling. No, no, no. I don't meet politicians. Really? No. I stay for politicians. You meet politicians. Politicians are slimy. Really? Yeah. That's my my my Okay. There's
31:14
a couple things here. Okay. So, I have some sensitivities. I am not a high society person.
31:21
Okay. I am a workingass guy or the working class I I don't like to be in those circles in the first
31:28
place. Right. Second, I've become aware and I I wrote about this in my recent article for Yaken
31:35
about um uh absence and presence. Right. um that as a religious leader, the most precious asset
31:44
that you have is credibility. And when you show up in spaces or you don't show up in spaces, people
31:49
are constantly trying to use you. That's the thing. They're trying to constantly trying to use you for credibility. I was invited to meet Trump. Uh I turned it well, I had my conditions and they
31:57
didn't meet the conditions, so I turned it down. I did meet Jill Stein because she actually met the conditions. The thing is that if you show up to a certain place, people are going to take
32:06
the picture and then that's the credibility that you've given them and that's your leverage. You don't have anything else they've got. They can wave that in your face or in your community's
32:14
face and say, "Look, look, look, no, no, we were with look at what Cuomo's doing in New York City right now." One of the most evil, slimy, corrupt politicians in a in living memory. and he's in
32:27
uh mosques and unfortunately foolish imams have invited him into their mosques to lie to their
32:36
face to let him pretend to be some defender of Islam. He literally was saying the other day that
32:41
he's like always for decades been standing against Islamophobia. Such a lying hypocrite, you know,
32:48
may Allah deal with him. Um but so this is the thing you have to so I don't do that. Like I don't
32:53
meet with politicians or talk with politicians. I do like I'm in the back. I'm in the shadows like with with some groups and advising here and suggesting things here, but I don't mix with that
33:02
population. But the question that you're asking is how much can we expect? I think that we have the
33:09
reason to to expect a lot. I do. I think that the last peel of or the layer of the onion that this
33:17
group of people has yet to really dig into that I would like to see the Tucker Carlson's and the
33:22
Candace Owenses and the Margory Taylor Greens um etc dig into is where does your opinion of Islam
33:30
come from? If they actually figure out that the Islamophobia industry is a coordinated Israeli
33:36
campaign in order to dehumanize resistance to the occupation both there and here, now we're talking,
33:44
as we would say, now we're cooking with Greece, that there's going to be some real potential for some major shifts in the categorization of the political scene in the US. up until this point,
33:55
and this is the danger, and this is also the danger of the current categorization of political life. They've thought that the Muslims are in step with the left. We're part of the woke mob,
34:09
the diversity crew that we're crying about Islamophobia when someone asks us where we're
34:14
from and we're concerned with microaggressions and we're sipping our matcha lattes and, you know, um,
34:20
snapping our fingers at blue-haired liberals when they talk. That's what they think of us, right?
34:27
And so we need to this and we have responsibility for that perception because we failed to keep the
34:35
middle and principally and uh strategically engage with both sides after 9/11. I mean you could
34:41
understand why but it was a strategic mistake to throw in and hook ourselves to the left no matter what. Vote blue no matter who. Now we're being perceived in this way and it's not it's actually
34:52
harming the community and what we're capable of doing. Um, so whenever we are seen in the lenses
34:58
of the culture war that we're simply like part we're like adjacent to Antifa, this is something
35:05
that harms us and harms the community and it also harms the potential for what we can do on both
35:12
sides. But does it also harm us to have alliances with the right? I think alliances is too general
35:18
of a term, right? I think that these are more like um, you know, b business transactions. I don't
35:23
think that, and this is another article that I've written about, I don't believe in the affinity
35:29
model of politics. I don't think that we look, and I I'm very sensitive to it because people will talk about who's our natural ally. We have no natural allies. What are you talking about? We are
35:36
we're Muslims. We don't fit anywhere. We're weirdos. We're socially conservative. We're
35:41
uh we're we're not on on foreign policy. We don't fit neatly anywhere. Okay. So, why are we talking
35:48
about natural allies? We're weirdos. Did you just say Yeah, we are. Okay. Yeah. Embrace it. Listen,
35:54
what did someone say? Was it Was it an event you were with me at where they said like they saw some
35:59
they were like concerned about wearing like a Kofi or something in public and they saw some goth person walking down the street everything black chains like a choker necklace like and all
36:10
this stuff like crazy makeup and they're like this person is going to look like that in public and
36:17
they're like this is just like a music genre. this falsehood that this person supports, then we have
36:22
to be comfortable with being weirdos. We have to be comfortable being ourselves, right? That's what I mean when I say when I say weirdos. Exactly. I mean, so the thing is that we have to um I don't
36:34
believe in an affinity method of politics or an affinity model of politics. I don't believe we have natural allies. I don't believe we have more natural ally on the right or the left. I think
36:41
that's a false uh that's a a dead end. I don't think that that's a productive way to think of it. Think about it as there are individual points of policy and issues that we have strategic interest
36:54
in and we need to find a way to have meaningful negotiation with either side on those issues. When
37:01
it comes to the right, we do have certain things maybe common interests on particular points. Um
37:08
if Marjorie Taylor Green is extremely suspicious of foreign lobbying, we need to run with that.
37:14
We don't want anyone having foreign control over the United States because guess what? Who's got their act together more? Saudi Arabia or Israel. We don't want like cutter to replace Israel. We
37:24
don't want any foreign lobbying. Give us a fair shot. Just give us like an even playing field. We'll take it. This is the danger. Like some of the people I think that have been spending
37:31
too much time with the left on Democrats, they almost as if they were to thinking, well, we can use American power for good. All we have to do is take the place of the Israel lobby and then we can
37:42
have we can like be using American power for Egypt and using American power. No, that's not what we want. That's not what we want. We're just going to Yeah, I don't want to go too far down that road,
37:52
but I think that you see and anticipate my critique here. We want to seal that off and
37:57
just have a fair shot here, an even playing field here that we're just on an even playing field with everybody else. We get to make our argument. We get to push our interests. We get to argue for
38:05
what we believe is right. and so do you. And if we do that, then we cut off all of our enemies that
38:12
are manipulating the United States system such as Israel that are or the Emirates, right, that are
38:17
trying to meddle within the United States, which groups are are allowed and not allowed, legal and
38:22
not illegal. The UAE is doing that. So, this isn't anybody who wants to say this is anti-Semitic. No,
38:27
we also don't want the Emirates involved whatsoever. We don't want any foreign nation to be able to come in and lobby our government here in the United States in order to punish Muslims
38:38
inside this nation for their issues that are going on over there. So, so this is the thing. So,
38:44
on this particular issue, this is something that we should be negotiating with them. Like, yes, you're right. We agree with you on this. How do we get this done? Israel is no friend of us,
38:52
no friend of you either, no friend of the United States. They don't believe in in free speech. They don't believe in the Bill of Rights. They don't believe in the a the constitution. So, how can
39:01
we stop this system from getting hacked? Because right now the American system is hacked. Israel found out how to hack it legally, politically, economically, institutionally through the
39:10
universities. That's what they've done. How can we hack proof this system as best as we can to stop
39:16
that? And then there's going to be other issues where it's that but it's with people on the left where we we align with them on this particular issue whether it's certain housing right uh things
39:27
or you know many of the policies of Mamani on on economics rent uh you know uh curbs on rent and
39:34
the um exploitative sort of economy that exists in many American cities. Healthcare things like
39:40
this like these are things that Islamic societies produced. They produced healthcare. they support they they produced a support network and something that could be akin or analogies analogist to a
39:51
welfare state right they had stipens for different types of people and the needy and and so on and so forth so if there's a particular point of interest there that we've have in common then we have to
40:00
enter into negotiation on that thing not as this big coalition that we're now like going to show up
40:07
to you know uh Thanksgiving dinner with them and expect to to be we're not we're not that close
40:13
coachables Um, of course, the left and right are engaged in in in a almighty cultural war. Yeah.
Culture wars
40:19
And there are so many levels to this. The Charlie Kirk uh shooting is is just one example of of the
40:26
the divisions that exist between left and right. But of course, gender issues and and other such
40:32
uh conversations are being had uh and debated all the time between the left and the right like how
40:38
if we're going to be principled and we're going to engage with the system on this transactional
40:43
level, how much should we uh should we uh take into account and even be part of these cultural
40:51
war debates? Yeah, that's a great question. I think that one of the most short-sighted things that we could do is to interact with the current political situation as if the categories
41:01
and alliances that exist now are always going to exist. They are flexible and plastic and they
41:08
are waiting to be molded and shaped. They are not static. If you look at even the Democratic party,
41:13
let alone the left, but even the Democratic party from the 90s, you had the third third wave Democrats with Bill Clinton that sought to minimize the difference between the Democratic
41:22
party and the Republican party. Then you had um well, I mean, they largely haven't moved on from that, but you've got, you know, the Obama years and then the ground swell of the progressive wing
41:31
with Bernie Sanders and now Manny. Okay, the Democratic Party in 2025 is not the same as the Democratic party in '94. Uh the same with the Republicans. the Republicans, they went
41:40
from the moral majority in the super early 90s to neoonservatives in the early 2000s to uh Tea Party
41:46
movement, right? And the Tea Party movement gave way to MAGA. So that's why it doesn't make sense
41:52
to get super invested in the culture war of the moment because all of these things are shifting. All of these things are constantly in flux. Rather, a more mature strategy would be to look
42:01
at what are the different component parts of each of these sides. Which of those component parts can
42:07
we develop an interface with and an understanding with? And how do we strengthen and bolster those
42:13
component parts that are more amendable to our interests when it comes to that tiny subsect
42:19
of the MAGA right that's very Israeli suspicious and more dedicated idealistically to free speech
42:25
and some of these uh ideas of the constitution even that you're dealing with some people that
42:31
are super like you know Christian nationalists and other people that aren't so much there are people
42:37
there that we would rather have in power compared to a Ted Cruz, someone who's just a classic neocon
42:46
pro Israel first neocon, right? And the same on the left. There's people that are progressives
42:51
that are more like labor rights progressives and not like uh LGBTQ progressives that we align with
42:57
more that we would rather have compared to some pro-Israeli J Street Democrat, right? So, we need
43:04
to not just get we need to not take our eyes off the ball, right? if like you know we were talking about uh soccer soccer football as the world knows it because you do play it with your feet
43:15
um that you don't just look at the ball and follow the ball around. You you scan you look
43:21
at what's the midfield doing? What's the attack doing? What's the defense doing? How much time's on the clock? What's the situation? Are we in a counterattack position? Are we pressing? Are we
43:28
playing possession? All these things. This is how we have to treat politics. You don't just look at the ball and just running around. and you see like four-year-olds play play soccer,
43:36
they're just like kicking each other in the shins in a big in a big lump in the middle of that's not what that's what we're doing with politics. That's how we're doing politics. We
43:44
can't do politics that way. We have to look what is likely to happen or what's possible to have happen within 5 years time and 10 years time. How do we chart a sequential course A B CDE E FG to
43:56
get to this? Maybe we'll only get four things, three things, two things accomplished, but at least we have a plan. At least people are making such a big deal out of the Heritage Fund's 2025
44:04
uh plan. Who's the only people that don't make a 2025 plan? The Muslims. Everybody has a similar
44:11
plan. They say that we've got a 300 objectives. We've met a hundred of them. We're working on 65 of them. Every single group and community does this except for us. It's America, baby. You're
44:22
allowed to. Like, you're allowed to come up with your mastermind plan to take over the country.
44:27
um and do your best. As long as you're not doing like uh illegal stuff with money or with weapons
44:34
or with violence, you're allowed to dream big. We have yet to really enter into that space and uh
44:40
and do what everybody else is doing. I want to ask you about um just one final question really about Charlie Kirk. Yeah. Because of course what what you've described here today is that we want to be
Response to Charlie Kirk’s death
44:49
able to interface with the the right. Yeah. and we want to strengthen that anti-ionist tendency
44:58
that exists within the MAGA right and so we don't want to alienate them uh and and so that then
45:03
leads to a question about how some people have responded to the death of Charlie Kirk because of course there have been some you know very uh forthright comments about his his hislamophobia
45:14
and his and that hasn't really played well in that MAGA community like if we think in this in
45:21
this sort of objective driven way. Maybe sometimes we have to sort of uh pull our punches and we have
45:27
to think carefully about how we uh how we describe and discuss issues in public because we are trying
45:35
to find a space in American polity where uh where Zionism becomes uh a a toxic idea. I mean is that
45:44
a there's there's definitely that's definitely a valid concern. I think that there's a fine line between respectability politics and what you're describing. So I would not subscribe to
45:54
a respectability politics that I have seen other figures I'm Yeah. So other figures um get behind
46:02
which is one that is constantly almost obsessive with how other people are viewing us because you
46:09
will end up uh folding and capitulating to bad faith takes and bad faith interpretations of of
46:15
what it's never going to be enough. Mam Dani is not an Islamist and they're calling him like bringing Sharia law to New York City. Like there's always going to be those types of people.
46:24
Sad Khan, Trump addressing the UN saying that SAD Khan of all people rainbow flag waving Sad Khan,
46:33
Hindu dotwearing SAD Khan is going to bring Sharia law to the to London. Yes. So for some
46:40
people it's never going to it's never going to be enough. So you have to be careful to not play into
46:45
respectability politics to the sense like we're we're concerned with doing the right things and getting the approval of Allahh. We're not we're not looking to pander. We're not trying to pander
46:53
to people. On the other hand, you're right like there are sensitivities around certain things and we have to actually craft messaging. Unfortunately, what happens? We don't craft
47:03
messaging. We're too reactive. We don't really know what we're doing. And so we take a look around like, oh wow, there's a major world event going on or a major national event. Well, what are
47:12
people saying? All right. Well, let's just copy what they're saying. That's usually what we do. So, you've got two camps that emerge. People that are celebrating Charlie Kirk's death because he
47:23
uh either was or seemed to be an enemy of Islam or at least at one point was an enemy of Islam, right? He said that what did he say? Islam is the sword by which the left slits America's throat or
47:33
something like this, right? He actually said that or something close to it. Um, and then you've got
47:39
other people who are saying like, "No, no, no. We're against political violence. We we we mourn every death." And, you know, I don't think that that's very creative of our community. I think
47:49
that there could be other messaging that could be developed that's saying like it seems like he was
47:54
changing. We believe in redemption. We believe Allah, you know, can redeem anybody. We wish he had more time because we thought that maybe he would have figured it out, right? um that when it
48:06
comes in particular to Islam that he was a victim of Israeli propaganda on on Islam and Muslims
48:12
which almost the entire right right wing is a victim of the coordinated misinformation campaign
48:18
of Israel on Islam and Muslims. There's um these are just off the top of my head. I haven't prepared these. So what I'm saying is that there's a lot more creative messaging that we could be
48:27
pushing than just like haha he was talking about gun violence and he got shot. Haha. That's very
48:33
unsophisticated if you ask me or on the other hand it's like you know this oh we mourn when
48:38
everything I don't see either of those with all due respect to people if you happen to have said that uh in the wake of his assassination I think we can do better that's I guess my point one very
Building Muslim institutions
48:49
last question I imam Tom um I spoke to someone yesterday who said when is I imam Tom Fakini going
48:55
to going to come back on Twitter like what's your Twitter ask ask I'll wait for a personal
49:01
invitation from Elon Musk, right? Until then, got other things I'm doing, bigger things, better
49:08
things. What was the rationale behind that, by the way? Why did you Why is it always Who people care
49:14
whether I'm on Twitter or not? I just like is this newsworthy? Is it really newsworthy to the people whether I'm on on the Twitter or not? This is crazy. Um because one thing that I observed
49:25
and we were talking about this the other day that you can be there's a lot of talking heads. There's
49:32
a lot of commentators. Commenting is one of the weakest forms of social change in my mind. Really?
49:40
I do. There's there's a lot of noise. You've got a dependency and a vulnerability of the platform.
49:47
You can be shut down very easily. Um, we need institutions. We need institutions that are going
49:53
to build a pipeline of leaders that are going to carry forth this work. We want to be changing the way that people talk about it. Like I'm thinking Muslim has become an institution, mashallah. Yes,
50:02
you exist on a platform, but you also exist beyond platforms. We need institutions that are going to
50:07
be training new leaders for the next generation. What's our succession plan? that are going to be systematizing the types of analyses and commentary and that we're that we're talking about that are
50:16
going to be able to um increase the reach and penetration and build a grassroots movement,
50:22
not just be existing online. The real world is not online. You know, the most of there there's
50:27
a real world out there with like trees and flowers and birds and stuff. I know that's a shock to some people, but it's true. So I believe that um if you look into like the the history of Islamic
50:39
movements even there's a need for commentators and there's a need for thought leaders but things
50:45
don't really start moving until you start building institutions and it's the institutions that are going to actually create the change that we want to see. So I'm trying to practice what I preach
50:53
and build institutions. I've launched a couple of organizations this past year. They're still in their formative periods. They a lot of work that needs to be put into them. Um, and so that's
51:02
what I see as the work that needs to be done. I see, and I was talking to someone else earlier this morning, I believe, I'll speak just for the American context, that the with all due respect to
51:13
the organizations that exist, the Muslim American community has outgrown the organizations that we
51:19
have that we can imagine it as Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3. Generation one, build a mosque. Figure it out.
51:26
Storefront, whatever, it doesn't matter. Figure out how a way to build mosque so you can pray. Gen two, the masses, the cares, the nas, the isnas, all these organizations that, you know,
51:36
maybe they began as cultural clubs and then they wanted to do da'a and do education and do all these things. May Allah reward them. Excellent. But I don't see them as I think that we need the
51:45
next generation. I think we need generation three of Muslim organizations. Ones that are going to be more strategic, more savvy, ones that are going to be able to not just measure things in terms
51:55
of effort and output, but in terms of impact and results. Um, and I tell that to youth. I don't
52:01
think that I've got all the answers. I tell that to all the youth that I that I speak to across the country and uh also across the the continent. This is the work of the moment as far as I see
52:11
it. Start up new organizations. Find a way to work together and find a way to get get it done. Tomi,
52:19
I wish I had more time with you, but thank you so much for your time today. Thank you.
52:25
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