Fast-forwarding to the third presidential debate of the 2016 presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said that the United States needed “to work with American Muslim communities who are on the front lines to identify and prevent [terrorist] attacks.” Again, this was not a new talking point at all; Clinton had consistently employed that same tired national security framework language about Muslims during her presidential runs. She again singled out over seven million American Muslims in the first and second presidential debates when she said, “We need American Muslims to be part of our eyes and ears on our front lines” against terrorism. Like Hasan Minhaj’s beef with Bill Clinton’s framing of American Muslims in a purely counterterrorism framework, Hillary Clinton’s perpetuation of this anti-Muslim trope has had the insidious political effect of marginalizing the political agency of millions of Muslims within the American political arena today.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 709