Early Wednesday morning, the world was treated to yet another flurry of tweetstorm from President Donald Trump. It was the typical seemingly random but not-so-random attacks against "fake news," hypocritical calling out of Matt Lauer, praise for the economy – and oh – retweeting anti-Muslim propaganda videos from the deputy leader of a hate group in England. Sadly, none of this is surprising. It's the same playbook we saw on the campaign trail: Incite anti-Muslim fervor, fears of terrorism and the 'other,' and drum up support from his base. While Trump in his role as president thoroughly degrades the office he holds, none of us should be shocked; as the saying goes, he showed us who he was a long time ago. What should make everyone pause, however, is why this sort of anti-Muslim nonsense continues to resonate with so many and why it appears to work time and again.

In 2010, I penned a piece titled "Islamophobia – Weapon of Choice for the Midterms." It's hard to believe, but it was seven years ago when Islamophobes like Pam Geller and others descended upon New York City to protest the proposed construction of what was in essence the Muslim version of a YMCA, which they manipulatively dubbed the "Ground Zero mosque." The right-wing saw an opportunity and ran with it straight into the midterm elections. Their "Ground Zero mosque" nonsense was pushed for months on conservative talk radio, networks like Fox News and others in their echo chamber. Then a few weeks prior to the anniversary of 9/11 in 2010, Geller and others convened a massive protest against the "Ground Zero mosque" in downtown New York. I covered that rally.

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There were protesters I interviewed who said all kinds of disparaging and openly bigoted things about Muslims to my face, not knowing of course that I was one of them. Then there were a few FDNY members I tried to interview who looked at me and said "we have nothing to say to you." While there was a counter demonstration that took place a few blocks away as well, it wasn't nearly the size of the anti-Muslim protest, and it didn't receive even a fraction of the coverage that the Islamophobic nonsense did.

The result of ginning up all this anti-Muslim intensity was clear: The Republican base was energized and came out in droves for the midterm election and delivered a "shellacking" to the Democrats (to quote then-President Obama). The GOP gained seats across the board and won back control of the House. Islamophobia and all the hysteria that comes along with it worked so well in 2010, so why are we the least bit surprised that Trump would do the same in order to help him win the presidency? After all, it's a tried-and-tested method for the right.

When Trump first championed his Muslim travel ban in December of 2015 following the San Bernardino attack – a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" to be precise – again, it wasn't surprising, but rather it was the next logical progression in the right-wing fear-mongering strategy. What should have troubled more of us, however, is the fact that news outlets gave Trump millions in free airtime to spew his vitriol and bigoted ideas, yet they rarely (if ever) brought on Muslims to counter his lies, and millions still voted for the man because they either agreed with him or didn't care enough about the subject to vote for someone else. Either way, it is a travesty and we are worse off for it every single day. Now we have a president who openly retweets hate groups, and he is our representative on the world stage. Muslims, and many others who were the victims of Trump's hate, tried to warn everyone, but their voices were just ignored and further marginalized by the media and institutions that would rather cater to and normalize the right-wing and white supremacists, giving them a platform and giving them a pass.

So here we are. The British prime minister's office has said that Trump was wrong to share those anti-Muslim videos on Twitter – which by the way, haven't even been authenticated, but the White House press secretary's response was that "whether it's a real video, the threat is real." There has been appropriate outrage from journalists, some politicians and every sane person following Trump's tweets, but what will truly change? Nothing. Muslims are the one group that apparently everyone can say any and everything about on both the left and right. (One need only look at Bill Maher.) Can we imagine a presidential candidate calling for a ban on any other group and still getting elected? Of course not.

Anti-Muslim ideas are nothing new; they have been perpetuated in the mainstream even before the horrific attacks of 9/11. What is new is the alarming level at which it has been normalized and accepted in a host of ways, not the least of which is the president of the United States retweeting vile videos from a known leader of a far-right hate group. It's not OK and it is unacceptable – but sadly, it is predictable. The fact that so many agree with him is what should really make us take note. It's not a coincidence that hate crimes against Muslims in the U.S. were up for the second straight year in 2016, an increase of nearly 20 percent according to the FBI.