Nathan Semans of Waverly, Tenn., appears to be a terrorist, and just the sort that the establishment media loves best: from the looks of his mugshot, he is not only white, but a southerner who is overweight, angry, and mean. He is even wearing an AC/DC t-shirt. He sent an email to WKRN, a TV station in Nashville, that included terrorist threats. Someone who believes CNN will assume that Semans is a redneck, Trump-supporting yahoo with a closet full of MAGA hats. Only he isn’t, which is why you likely won’t hear about this story anywhere except here.

Nashville’s WTVF reported Friday that Semans wrote:

Look if you don’t run story I’m going to state capital to blow someone’s brain out. I don’t look good at the moment cause the tyranny of what trump did, the nature of this call is secret. You think I’m kidding trump belongs in the dumpster from a cool kid. Knock it off I’m human. I’ll immediately leave this country on a double once my passport clears, I’m sick of this nonsense and bologna hanging around that trumps the perfect American, hallelujah against trump I recommend you forward to the table of the news room or I join ISIS to seek revenge.

It is unclear whether Nathan Semans is a convert to Islam or simply a sociopath who admires the Islamic State’s vicious brutality. After all, jihad is chic today. The Times reported as far back as 2014 that “one in seven young British adults has ‘warm feelings’ towards Islamic State, according to a poll. Isis is riding a surge of ‘anti-politics’ sentiment among disaffected under-35s who admire the jihadists’ courage, academics warn. A tenth of Londoners and one in 12 Scots view Islamic State (Isis) favourably, but sympathy for the militant group reaches its highest levels among the under-25s.”

In India that same year, according to The Hindu, “a group of 26 Muslim youths caused a flutter when they posed for a photograph, sporting black T-shirts with the emblem of the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Shams) in front of a mosque at the coastal town of Thondi in Ramanathapuram district on Eid day.” They weren’t terrorists; they were just partakers of jihad chic: “After one of them posted the photograph on Facebook, which went viral, the police swung into action but found none of them had any direct or indirect link with the ISIS, which was battling the governments of Iraq and Syria, or any other fundamentalist Muslim outfit. ‘The police questioned B. Abdul Rahman, 24, who had ordered the T-shirts from a garment company at Tirupur, but found nothing incriminating,’ said Superintendent of Police N.M. Mylvahanan.”

Nothing incriminating?

This admiration for jihadis is not restricted to young Muslims. The Belgian fashion company MXDVS last year introduced a “Terror” clothing line that was clearly designed to appeal to the hip and trendy. And, of course, the Palestinian jihad is extremely fashionable among young people in the West. In one paradigmatic incident, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported last September that the celebrated Spanish soccer team Real Madrid “welcomed Palestinian teenage activist Ahed Tamimi to its stadium.” Tamimi “was sentenced in March to eight months in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of assault, including the one in which she slapped a soldier in front of her house that was videotaped and went viral on social media.”

This made Ahed Tamimi a darling of the international Left, because the international Left uncritically accepts the Palestinian propaganda that portrays Israeli Defense Forces soldiers as monsters. Would Real Madrid ever honor a foe of jihad terror? Of course not. Opposing jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression isn’t chic. The Palestinian jihad is.

Maybe Nathan Semans has been caught up in this atmosphere of jihad chic. Or maybe he actually is a convert to Islam, and one of the many who has gotten the impression that his new religion requires him to commit treason and murder. Either way, his case provides a problem for the establishment media. If he fit the media paradigm, the media would give his threats lavish coverage. But since Semans denounced Trump twice in his deranged statement, and threatened to join ISIS, which the establishment media insist is not nearly as much of a threat as white supremacists are, if it is even a threat at all. That is why the establishment media, as ever our moral superiors, will ignore the story of Nathan Semans.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His new book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.