On Monday morning, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., did something that has become practically routine among House Republicans: He launched a racist attack against millions of American Muslims.
“Muslims don’t belong in American society,” Ogles said on X. “Pluralism is a lie.”
When asked about Ogles’ bigoted anti-Muslim outburst, House Speaker Mike Johnson did what he’s done many times in the past when a Republican House member posted an outrageously racist sentiment on social media: nothing.
Johnson refused to condemn Ogles and instead argued that “there’s a lot of energy in the country, and a lot of popular sentiment, that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem.”
In fact, there is no popular sentiment to impose Sharia law in America — and it’s not a serious problem. Johnson’s real concern is not the myth of impending Sharia law, but rather mobilizing Republican voters in the run-up to this November’s midterm elections. And if the last 10 years have taught us anything, it is that Republican voters seem to eagerly respond to openly racist political appeals.
You don’t have to believe me on this point. Just look at the anti-Muslim rhetoric coming from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., who has made Islamophobia his calling card since arriving in Congress last year, recently posted a message on X that said: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” Last year, he called for the deportation of American Muslims, claiming that “Mainstream Muslims have declared war on us. The least we can do is kick them the hell out of America.”
Ogles and Fine are not just a couple of crackpot backbenchers. They have lots of company.
Close to 100 Republican members of Congress — that’s more than 45% — have made social media posts about Islam or Muslims, and nearly all of them are negative.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., wrote last week, “No more Islamic immigration. Denaturalize, deport, repeat.” Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, said in November that Islam is “incompatible with our culture and our governing system.” Late last year, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who is now running to be the state’s governor, wrote on social media that Muslims are in the U.S. “to conquer” and “we’ve got to SEND THEM HOME NOW.” Tuberville also called Islam a “cult,” which is a heck of a charge from a member of a party helmed by Donald Trump.
According to a recent analysis by The Washington Post, close to 100 Republican members of Congress — that’s more than 45% — have made social media posts about Islam or Muslims, and nearly all of them are negative.
Make no mistake, this is pure racism — and it’s increasingly also showing up on the campaign trail.
Indeed, as Ayman Mohyeldin wrote last month for MS NOW, recent GOP primary campaigns in Texas were a virtual cesspool of Islamophobic hate speech, with repeated warnings by Republican candidates of a Muslim “invasion” and made-up claims that Sharia law is coming to Texas unless voters choose the most anti-Islamic candidate. One congressional candidate, Valentina Gomez, even launched her candidacy by setting fire to a Quran and declaring, “Your daughters will be raped, and your sons beheaded, unless we stop Islam once and for all.” As toxic as this rhetoric is, it’s hardly accidental that so many Republicans are spouting it. Texas Republicans, along with Speaker Johnson and other House GOP leaders who refused to condemn Ogles and Fine, undoubtedly understand that anti-Muslim rhetoric, even deeply hateful and un-American sentiments, play with GOP voters. According to Texas GOP consultant Vinny Minchillo, quoted last month in Politico about the GOP’s increasingly Islamophobic appeals, “One hundred percent this message works — there’s no question about it. This has been polled up one side and down the other, and with Texas Republican primary voters, it works. It is a thing they are legitimately scared of.” The GOP’s open embrace of undeniably racist appeals is a by-product of Trump’s ascendancy in the Republican Party. Trump has long used racist rhetoric, from demonizing undocumented immigrants to questioning where former President Barack Obama was born. He arguably jump-started his presidential campaign in 2015 when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the country. Trump’s political success shows that Republican politicians can engage in open and vitriolic prejudice and pay little political price with their most committed supporters. He normalized political hate speech. But what is striking about the latest series of racist appeals is that it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans drew a line on what they considered acceptable, particularly for House members. In January 2019, for example, then-Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, was stripped of his House committees when he was quoted as asking a reporter, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” Make no mistake, this is pure racism — and it’s increasingly also showing up on the campaign trail. King had a long and tawdry record of expressing racist sentiments. But his white supremacy comments presented an acute political problem for the GOP, particularly after a bruising 2018 midterm that saw the party lose control of the House of Representatives and King’s underwhelming performance in winning re-election that year. Party leaders understood the expediency of jettisoning King from their caucus. Unlike King’s long record of white supremacist sentiments, today’s Islamophobia feels more like a calculated political strategy. After all, politicians of the same political party don’t just coincidentally start voicing the same political talking points. Republicans are looking to mobilize a moribund base of voters, particularly with Democratic voters appearing energized and motivated to vote in November, and they’ve clearly determined that attacking Muslims is an effective strategy. If it weren’t, they wouldn’t be doing it. Fine and Ogles are disgusting racists who are using their platforms in the House to spout divisive and dangerous rhetoric — and further their political careers. They’ll keep doing it — and their leaders won’t stop them — because they understand that when it comes to Republican voters, and Islamophobia, they are pushing against an open door.
Michael Cohen is an MS NOW columnist. He is also the publisher of the newsletter Truth and Consequences and hosts the weekly podcast That ‘70s Movie Podcast. 
