16 people who shaped the 2016 election: Khizr and Ghazala Khan

By Nov. 9, the votes will have been cast and counted, there will be a winner and a loser, and the country will begin a slow return to normal. Historians will have their say on the outcome, but all of us who have lived through this election will carry away indelible memories of a shocking year in American history: of a handful of ordinary people, swept up in the rush of history; of a series of moments on which the fate of the nation seemed, at least briefly, to turn; and of places on the map that became symbols of a divided nation. As we count down to Election Day, Yahoo News has identified 16 unforgettable people, moments and places.

Among the many formerly sacrosanct boundaries Donald Trump trampled in the course of his campaign, one that seemed especially glaring was his attack on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Pakistani-born parents of an American Army captain who was killed in action in Iraq. In a brief speech at the Democratic National Convention that brought many viewers to tears, Khizr Khan said, “Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims.” If Trump had his way in banning Muslims from entering the United States, Khan said, his son, Humayun, “never would have been in America.” Brandishing a pocket copy of the United States Constitution, Khan challenged Trump to read it and look up “equal protection of law,” and to visit the graves at Arlington National Cemetery of service members of “all faiths, genders and ethnicities” who died for their country. “You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”

It was, for Democrats, a moment as cathartic and moving as the appearance of Pat Smith, whose son Sean was killed in the attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, was for Republicans at their convention. Clinton did not answer Smith, who said she held the former secretary of state “personally” responsible for Sean’s death, but Trump launched an attack on the Khans that even some of his allies said went too far. He cited his own sacrifices in creating “tens of thousands of jobs,” building “great structures” and achieving “tremendous success.” He called attention to Ghazala Khan’s silence during her husband’s speech: “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.” (She later explained that she was too overcome with emotion to speak.)

This outburst directed at the grieving mother of a fallen serviceman drew an expression of “most severe disagreement” from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., although not severe enough for him to withdraw his endorsement. It was denounced by veterans groups, including the VFW, which called Trump’s remarks “out of bounds.” The death of a young man is a tragedy under any circumstances, but Khan’s death was also heroic: Suspecting that a car heading for his base was a suicide attack, he ordered his men to take cover and stepped forward himself to challenge it, dying in the explosion. As his father told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric in an exclusive interview months after the convention, the family still hears from the men in his company: “Even now those letters come with pictures of their families, of their grown children. They send that, ‘If it wasn’t for Captain Khan, we would not be able to raise our children. Because we were the target of that morning’s attack.”

Trump, characteristically, insisted he was the real victim, writing in a tweet: “I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me!” This line of argument was revived at the second presidential debate, when Trump — citing his unproved and much-disputed opposition to the invasion — claimed that “if I were president [in 2004] he would be alive today, because unlike [Hillary Clinton], who voted for the war without knowing what she was doing, I would not have had our people in Iraq.”

On the other hand, Trump was praised for his comments by some, including conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who wrote on Breitbart.com: “Apparently, sending out a victim to make their argument was the only option left for the ‘Make America Muslim!’ crowd.” But the Khans don’t express a desire to make America Muslim; they love it and believe in it as it is. And the response they’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive, from, as Khan told Couric, “common citizens like us, encouraging us that what we have done, what we have stood for, is worth [doing]. Reminding America of its goodness, reminding them of wonderful values that this nation has, this country has.” He was stopped one day at an airport by a young man who identified himself as a football player. He said, “Mr. Khan, I’m so proud to live in your country.” — By Jerry Adler. Video produced by Steve Shapiro.

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