the American right assert that President Barack Obama is a Muslim (or, even worse, a crypto-Muslim), in a direct echo of the founders’ debate over whether a Muslim could ever be president. Far more than an echo, however, was the statement by Ben Carson—Republican candidate, one-time front-runner, and subsequently President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development—during the 2016 presidential campaign: “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”
