A new Daily Wire piece argues that a decades-old Norm Macdonald joke has curdled into reality: the comedian once sarcastically imagined an ISIS attack triggering a backlash against peaceful Muslims, and the outlet contends that a sizable share of young Americans now hold views once confined to the darkest corners of the internet.
The column, published on DailyWire.com, cites polling data indicating that 20% of Gen Z Americans hold a positive view of Osama bin Laden, the architect of the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The outlet attributes that shift largely to social media platforms where, it says, a majority of young people spend their time consuming content that reframes terrorism as a justifiable response to American foreign policy.
The TikTok Revival of a Terrorist’s Manifesto
According to the Daily Wire account, the trend took off around November 2023, when TikTok users began widely recirculating bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America,” a document in which he laid out his grievances against the United States and his theological justifications for violence. The letter opens with Quranic verses calling believers to fight nonbelievers, framing the conflict as a religious obligation rather than a political dispute.
The Daily Wire column describes bin Laden’s letter as splitting into two parts: first, a litany of complaints about U.S. military presence in the Middle East, support for Israel, and intervention against Saddam Hussein; and second, a direct call for Americans to convert to Islam or face war.
The piece disputes bin Laden’s framing, noting that on the morning of September 11, 2001, the United States was not occupying Afghanistan or Iraq. It points out that American forces had spent the preceding decade protecting Muslims in the Balkans, feeding Somalis, and containing Saddam Hussein — context the outlet says bin Laden deliberately omitted to manufacture a narrative of victimhood aimed at sympathetic Western audiences.
What the column calls the letter’s most revealing passage is its conclusion, where bin Laden tells Americans they are the “worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind” for separating religion from policy and inventing their own laws. He then warns that those who reject Islam should prepare for war with the “Islamic Nation.”
The Media and the Making of a ‘Victim’
The Daily Wire also takes aim at what it describes as the mainstream media’s role in softening bin Laden’s image, accusing outlets of portraying him as an impoverished, bearded figure driven to extremism by hardship. The column counters that bin Laden was born into enormous wealth: his father, Muhammad bin Laden, built the Saudi Binladin Group into the kingdom’s dominant construction firm, and the family ranked among the top five Saudi fortunes in 2009, according to Forbes.
The piece extends that argument to Mohamed Atta, a lead hijacker in the 9/11 plot. Atta, the column notes, was a 27-year-old architecture student at the Technical University in Hamburg, fluent in German, and the son of a Cairo lawyer. His will, written in April 1996, made no mention of U.S. foreign policy but specified strict religious requirements for his burial and the distribution of his money.
The column cites writer and former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who observed that Atta was not an “Islamist” in any formal organizational sense but held an uncompromising, militant commitment to Islam he was willing to die for. The Daily Wire’s point is that poverty and madrassas are not the typical profile of terrorists — several of the 9/11 hijackers were educated at Western universities. In the outlet’s telling, they simply wanted Americans dead.
Border Security, Political Life, and the Question of Compatibility
Turning to current events, the column claims that at least 18,000 known or suspected terrorists entered the United States during the Biden-era border surge. It highlights the case of Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, described as a known ISIS member who was enrolled at Old Dominion University and later allowed back on campus after storming a classroom with a stolen handgun and killing an Army ROTC instructor. It also references a Muslim mayor in New York City who, according to the outlet, supported “globalizing the intifada” and whose wife celebrated the October 7 massacre of Israelis.
The piece mentions public calls to prayer in American streets, what it calls bending and breaking of laws followed by forgiveness, and politicians touting Sharia law, as well as American-Muslim pundits quoting bin Laden.
Still, the Daily Wire takes care to distinguish between Muslims generally and the ideology it criticizes. It acknowledges that many Muslims are “fabulous” and “wonderful” people who wish to moderate their faith as Jews and Christians have. To support that, the column quotes two Arab voices. Ahmed Khalifa, a Dubai writer, recently said, “As an Arab and a Muslim, I’m telling you, ban the Muslim Brotherhood from your countries. They’re a cancer in society.” Amjad Taha, an Emirati analyst, said, “Ban the Muslim Brotherhood terrorists… They are not illegal immigrants but criminals. The Muslim Brotherhood are terrorists, not activists.”
The outlet’s conclusion is a stark one: that Islam is incompatible with Western life, that it should remain in the Middle East where Sharia governs public law, and that whitewashing its history benefits no one — not Muslims, not non-Muslims, and not the United States.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/life-imitates-art-the-norm-macdonald-muslim-joke-that-came-true