Trump shooter: A terrorist by another name?

Donald Trump was shot during his campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 14. He sustained a minor injury to his ear, narrowly escaping death by mere millimeters. The shooter was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed at the scene by the Secret Service.

The FBI, in their wisdom, has announced that they are “investigating whether the incident was a terrorist attack or not.” The shooter sets himself up on a rooftop with a clear view of the podium where the presidential candidate was speaking, fires several shots, not just one, into a large crowd, killing and injuring people, yet neither the FBI nor the American and European media have dared to label him “a terrorist”.

As I said, the FBI is still “investigating whether there was any political motivation behind the attack.” Now they are even considering whether Iran might have been involved. The killer, who took a life of an innocent spectator, is referred to as a ‘shooter,’ not a terrorist.

Imagine if his name had been Omar

If the shooter’s name had not been the Anglicized names of two of Jesus’s apostles, Thomas (Tau’ma) and Matthew (Mattityahu), but instead Omar or Ali, would the FBI and the American media be this meticulous? Or would the American media, from the New York Times to Fox, along with their Western European counterparts, have immediately started broadcasting about a “Muslim terrorist”?

In Norway, it took Anders Behring Breivik to label himself as a Nazi after he killed 77 people and injured 242 on July 22, 2011, for him to be labeled a terrorist. Until then, he was described as a “lone wolf” and an “extremist.”

Had the shooter who targeted Trump been named Omar, Ali, or Hussein, would we have already learned every detail about his seven generations of connections, perhaps even exaggerating them? Wouldn’t we? Including the mosque he attended, his imam, and their connections?

When the shooter is from the neighborhood

Yet, American intelligence agencies, which claim to know everything happening around the world, still don’t know the background of the shooter who targeted Trump, right? They haven’t identified which church or synagogue he attended or if he was a Buddhist or an atheist, right?

Since the end of the Cold War, especially following 1- Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorist attacks and 2- ISIS’s atrocities in the Syrian civil war, the label “terrorist” has been used for Muslims, whether they deserve it or not.

When this is the criterion, naturally, confusion arises. This is a mentality that implies that “Hamas is a terrorist organization” thus Israel is justified in killing tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza because of Hamas. Only if they did not prevent the humanitarian aid, we solemly condemn that of course…

If your name is Thomas, Matthew, Mary, or Sarah, it’s one set of descriptors; if it’s Omar, Ali, Maryam, or Sarah, it’s another, right? Isn’t it?

This confusion in the West seems likely to increase when the American public, with its unique common sense, re-elects Trump as president.

Trump’s most strategic choice

Trump has chosen 39-year-old Ohio Senator JD Vance, James David, as his Vice President candidate. His book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” representing the impoverished and hopeless American countryside, sold well and was even made into a film.  Trump is more focused on his own people in the most extreme right-populist manner possible rather than disciplining the world like Joe Biden, whom Obama saw as a foreign policy genius and made his vice president. He is known for his “mudslinging” style of politics. Bush’s team was called “neoconservative,” this generation is called “neoreactionary.” Deeply religious and opposed to everything European liberals value. His foreign policy interest is mainly about Mexican immigrants and, for example, he opposes American military aid to Ukraine, saying the money should go to poor American farmers.

At this point, Western Europe is alarmed. The European Union already doesn’t like Trump. And Trump doesn’t like them. His distance from NATO doesn’t please the EU economies that entrusted their defense to American soldiers and grew wealthy over the decades. Under Trump, fears of Russia will intensify.

European anxiety about Trump

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the current EU President, made his first visits to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then he went to China to meet Xi Jinping. In the US for the NATO Summit, he did not meet President Biden but went to visit Trump, just before the attack.

In a letter to other EU leaders who criticized him for meeting with Putin, Xi, and Trump, he wrote that Trump would change Ukraine policy immediately upon taking office, burdening the EU further with the current policy. Meanwhile, Biden’s policy of disciplining the world was pushing European economies to provide more financial and military aid, not just to Ukraine against Russia but also to Israel against the Palestinians.

A significant part of the world may be happy about the US turning inward; at least the export of war under the guise of democracy might decrease. This is the concern of European governments that have become rich while hiding behind the American military and challenging Russia—and now China. They don’t like Trump but have to tolerate him.

Bigotry, discrimination, and oppression will increase

It would be naive to think that religious and ideological bigotry, which still can’t label the shooter from Pennsylvania, Thomas Matthew, as a terrorist because his name isn’t Omar or Ali, will not rise during the Trump-Vance period in both the East and the West.

The US turning inward might seem positive in terms of reducing the spread of wars, but on the other hand, religious and ethnic bigotry, exacerbated by immigration issues, is likely to rise everywhere. As nation-states become stronger than before and power politics replace international law, this situation will inevitably affect Türkiye as well.

Returning to the initial topic, I want to draw your attention to one more point.

It has not been disclosed whether the shooter was Jewish, but the important Jewish organization “Anti-Defamation League” has expressed concern that the assassination attempt on Trump could fuel anti-Semitism in America.

Could they know a connection that the FBI and investigative American media haven’t found? Or not?