What do Republican officials think of the nation’s roughly 4.5 million Muslims?
asserted
officials → think → Muslims
No need to ask—they’ll just tell you.
“Muslims don’t belong in American society,” says Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee.
asserted
Ogles → ask → Tennessee
“No more Muslims immigrating to America,” says Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas.
asserted
Gill → immigrate → Texas
“We need more Islamophobia, not less,” says Rep. Randy Fine of Florida.
asserted
Fine → need → Florida
“Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic,” says Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
asserted
Mace → hold → Carolina
“No more Muslims,” says Rep. Chip Roy of Texas.
asserted
Roy → say → Texas
“No more Islamic immigration,” says Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia.
asserted
Clyde → say → Georgia
“I hate Islam; it’s a demonic death cult,” says Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith of Indiana.
asserted
Beckwith → hate → Indiana
“It is time to let your elected officials know exactly how you feel about the infiltration of Islam into our communities,” says Rep. Keith Self of Texas.
asserted
Self → let → Texas
“We must IMMEDIATELY BAN all ISLAM immigrants and DEPORT every single Islamist who is living among us just waiting to attack,” says Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
asserted
Tuberville → ban → Alabama
“Muslims need to be treated like enemy combatants,” says Laura Loomer, of Mar-a-Lago.
asserted
Loomer → need → Lago
It’s a cliche, at this point, to suggest that if elected officials in this country talked about members of any other religious group the way they talk about Muslims, they would be shunned from polite society—or at least called to account for it.
asserted
they → ’ → it
But it’s hard to dispute the point.
asserted
it → ’ → point
Open bigotry toward Muslims is not just a way to get ahead in President Donald Trump’s Republican Party.
asserted
bigotry → get → Party
Increasingly, it seems to be the purpose of Trump’s Republican Party.
asserted
it → seem → Party
It’s the key to understanding what’s changed in the MAGA world—and what has always been like this.
asserted
what → ’ → this
We’re not talking about it enough.
asserted
We → talk → it
I’ve been covering Islamophobia in politics at Mother Jones since President Barack Obama’s first term, reporting on the rise of copycat anti-Shariah legislation in state legislatures in 2011 and a backlash to the construction of new Islamic centers.
asserted
I → cover → centers
The most famous of these controversies was over the Park51 project in Lower Manhattan, which in the parlance of right-wing media became the “Ground Zero Mosque.”
asserted
which → become → media
This boomlet was organized and well-funded, and it had proponents in Congress and at think tanks and most definitely in the media, but it was also fundamentally grassroots.
asserted
it → fund → media
It was the thing people in power aren’t talking about enough.
asserted
people → talk → power
(In fact, some of these activists believed mainline Republican institutions like the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, had been captured by Islamists, too.)
asserted
which → believe → Islamists
This kind of Islamophobia was endemic to the Obama era—fusing conservative war on terror tropes to conservative Black president tropes to conservative immigration tropes.
asserted
kind → fuse → tropes
Of the three, the first one evolved with the times; the second one faded; and the last one eventually dominated everything.
asserted
one → evolve → everything
For a brief period, this kind of Islamophobia receded in salience a bit on the right.
asserted
kind → recede → right
In 2013, I even wrote a piece about how the biggest Islamophobes had been banned from CPAC (accusing CPAC of being secretly Islamist did not go over well) and the anti-Shariah movement seemed to have burned out in the Capitol.
asserted
movement → write → Capitol
Did the piece age well?
asserted
piece → age → ?
No, it did not.
asserted
it → do → ?
But re-reading it is instructive, because a whole bunch of people who wielded influence within the party at the time—and whom I credited with pushing back—were either out of the picture within a matter of years, or they adapted.
asserted
they → re → years
Grover Norquist, John McCain, and John Boehner were all flawed in different ways, but this stuff wasn’t their passion.
asserted
stuff → flaw → ways
Mike Rogers, then a Republican congressman from Michigan, played a part in turning down the temperature.
asserted
Rogers → play → temperature
It was possible, at times, to still separate the leaders from the fringe, in part because in 2013, there wasn’t any one leader to speak of.
asserted
It → separate → 2013
That changed with Trump, who ran against the party’s old guard and then consolidated power while embracing Islamophobia like no one of his stature had before.
asserted
one → change → stature
His call for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the country is still one of the most severe acts of religious discrimination ever proposed by an American president.
asserted
call → enter → president
But it’s worth keeping in mind that the sweeping ban stemmed from a specific panic over Syrian refugees, amid fears of attacks by ISIS.
asserted
ban → ’ → ISIS
It was not pitched to the public as ethnic cleansing on a path to ethnonationalist renewal.
asserted
It → pitch → renewal
(To give you a sense of how Trump’s message was evolving even then, as recently as that September, the candidate was advocating for admitting Syrian refugees.)
asserted
candidate → give → refugees
Trump’s proposal was properly characterized as extreme, and became the source of a lot of friction within the party—Sen. Mike Lee of Utah even compared the proposal to Missouri’s 1838 extermination order against Mormons.
asserted
Lee → characterize → Mormons
After Trump took office, the Muslim ban became the “Travel Ban,” and—in what would also become a trend
asserted
what → take → office
—the Supreme Court agreed to pretend that although it looked like a Muslim ban and sounded like a Muslim ban and was designed by the very same people who promised to enact a Muslim ban, this was actually something quite different.
asserted
this → agree → ban
…and 60 more, not listed.
