To the editor:

Fourteen years ago, when the United States suffered the greatest infliction of loss of life on its own soil in our history, President George W. Bush, visited a mosque in Washington, D.C. While there, he said, “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”

Let’s contrast this with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. He’s supported the idea of surveilling mosques and establishing a database for all Muslims in the U.S. On Monday, he continued his prejudiced comments by calling for a ban on all Muslims from entering the United States.

Trump fails to see that the terrorists’ malevolence, viciousness and violence are not due to Islam, but to a politicized form of it. It’s the distorted belief that everyone outside of my group is evil. Make no mistake about it: To the right audience, ISIS has charisma. And whether or not the U.S. should take away some of ISIS’s charisma by handing them some sort of defeat on the battlefield, the way we did to al-Qaida in Iraq, is a legitimate discussion to be had.

Regardless, as an American, I find Trump’s notion of banning all Muslims trying to enter the country backward, small-minded and embarrassing. We have to win the battle of ideas. That has been true since 9/11, and it’s still true today. We need a president who understands this. Mr. Trump does not.