Terrorism has emerged once again as the central issue in the presidential campaign — but not in a way anyone expected. In the wake of attacks in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have accused each other of being the candidate Islamic terrorists prefer.
Clinton started it — last week’s round, at least. She came out swinging on Monday, saying Trump’s rhetoric made him a “recruiting sergeant” for Islamic State. “The language that Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries,” she said. (“Aid and comfort” is part of the Constitution’s definition of treason.)
Trump, who earlier accused President Obama and Clinton of being the “founders” of Islamic State, fired back. “Terrorists all over the world … are hoping and praying that Hillary Clinton becomes president,” he said. “They want her so badly to be your president, you have no idea,” he added later.
It’s dangerous to call anything unprecedented, but I can’t remember a presidential campaign in which the candidates accused each other of being in league, wittingly or not, with the nation’s worst enemies. During the Cold War, Republicans sometimes accused liberal Democrats of being soft on communism — but usually painted them as dupes, not co-conspirators.
When many Americans are gripped by fear of terrorist strikes in city streets or shopping malls, this is pretty rough stuff.
It should go without saying that neither Islamic State nor any other terrorist group has endorsed either candidate. (If they did, the result could be dramatic.)
But on the facts, Clinton has the better of this argument. This spring, spokesmen for Islamic State celebrated Trump’s proposals to ban Muslim immigration to the United States apparently because they believed it would sharpen the clash of civilizations the extremist group wants to provoke. “I ask Allah to deliver America to Trump,” one wrote.
Contrary to what Trump said, there’s no record of any Islamic State spokesmen saying they want Clinton to win. The GOP nominee claimed that the terrorists prefer Clinton’s policies to his, but there’s no evidence of that either.
Trump’s argument is that Clinton, as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, shares responsibility for allowing Islamic State to rise. “We’ve been very gentle” to Islamic State, he claimed Monday, seemingly ignoring the almost 12,000 airstrikes U.S. forces have carried out against the group since 2014.
“We’re going to have to do something extremely tough over there,” he told Fox News.
“Like what?” a Fox anchor asked.
“Like knock the hell out of them,” Trump said. That’s about as specific as he gets.
Here’s the political surprise in this brawl: Clinton could come out ahead.
Indeed, Clinton’s quick offensive on this issue revealed how she wants to frame the voters’ choice: Which candidate do you want to put in charge of the armed forces?
In normal election years, most voters say they think the Republican candidate, with the GOP’s hawkish history, is better qualified to deal with terrorism.
But this isn’t a normal year. In a Fox News poll released last week, more voters said Clinton would do a better job dealing with terrorism than would Trump, by 47 percent to 46 percent.
Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com
