While Donald Trump continues to ramp up his rhetoric against Muslims and Latinos, Vice President Joseph Biden has warned that politics of fear and intolerance would have serious implications for American democracy, security and societal values.
Delivering what he called an advice for the next US president, Biden said at a Washington think tank that painting all Muslims as complicit in violence would play into the narrative of terror groups including ISIS that America is fighting in the Middle East.
“Wielding the politics of fear and intolerance, like proposals to ban Muslims from entering the United States or slandering entire religious communities as complicit in terrorism, calls into question America’s status as the greatest democracy in the history of the world,” Biden remarked without naming Trump.
The vice president spoke as the presumptive Republican nominee Trump poured forth more incendiary in his election campaign by endorsing the notion of profiling American Muslims. In the wake of this month’s Orlando mass shooting – carried out by a Muslim of Afghan descent Omar Mateen – the business tycoon has already expanded his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States by extending such restriction to the entire regions.
Biden, who along with President Barack Obama, has backed Democratic Hillary Clinton for November 8 election, also hit Trump’s propagation of using torture as interrogative technique.
“Adopting the tactics of our enemies — using torture, threatening to kill innocent family members, indiscriminately bombing civilian populations — not only violates our values, it’s deeply, deeply damaging to our security,” Biden said at the Center for New American Security.
Biden also echoed a scathing disapproval of Trump’s plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to stop immigrant inflow.
“If we build walls and disrespect our closest neighbors, we will quickly see all this progress disappear, replaced by a return of anti-Americanism and a corrosive rift throughout our hemisphere,” the vice president said.
