The Left’s blind spot on terrorism

CommentaryMagazine.com

When Omar Mateen massacred dozens of gay men in a Florida nightclub in 2016, said Noah Rothman, the Left seized on the theory that the radicalized Muslim was a repressed homosexual primarily motivated by anti-gay hatred. We now know this was completely false. During a trial in which his wife was acquitted last week of complicity in the attack, the evidence showed that Mateen had never visited Pulse, may not have known it was a gay bar, and chose it an hour before the shooting by Googling “downtown Orlando nightclub.” He’d planned to attack the Walt Disney World resort, but had been scared off by its substantial security. The homophobia theory arose despite the fact that Mateen pledged his allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call and had been investigated by the FBI for his eager online consumption of jihadist propaganda. At the time, President Obama joined in the effort to downplay Mateen’s true motives, saying that to blame “radical Islamic terrorism” was “a political distraction.” Liberals often like to accuse the Right of “epistemic closure”—a refusal to consider any evidence that contradicts their cherished beliefs and biases. “Apparently, the fever is catching.”