Recently, a video surfaced of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) calling Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) “blackhearted” and “evil.” Boebert repeatedly referred to Omar as the “jihad squad” and likened her to a suicide bomber, saying she only felt safe in an elevator with her because Omar was not wearing a backpack. Though Boebert’s comments have been strongly condemned by many Democrats, Republicans have mostly remained silent. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) refused to condemn Boebert’s comments; Boebert faces no material consequences for her anti-Muslim rhetoric.
These comments are just the latest salvo of such rhetoric from Republican politicians, a shift from the era when Republican President George W. Bush repeatedly called on Americans to oppose terrorism while supporting Islam and Muslims more generally. As candidate and as president, Donald Trump often attacked Muslims and Islam, including calling for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the United States.
But anti-Muslim bias is widespread throughout the GOP ranks. Indeed, a report commissioned by the organization Muslim Advocates found that more than 80 political candidates across 33 states in the 2018 midterm election had utilized anti-Muslim rhetoric. All but two of the candidates were Republican.
The widespread use of anti-Muslim rhetoric, combined with lack of political consequences, suggests that Americans, or at least those who identify as Republican, find anti-Muslim bias acceptable. In other words, Americans have not developed social norms of equality that constrain anti-Muslim rhetoric and behavior. My research supports this conclusion.
How I did my research
From 2018 to 2020, I surveyed two national samples of roughly 1,000 Americans recruited through the survey firm Lucid and one sample of 800 White Americans recruited through YouGov to better understand how people respond to anti-Muslim political messages. Both Lucid samples were benchmarked to national census demographics, while the YouGov sample is nationally representative of White Americans.
In the two Lucid surveys, conducted in July and November of 2018, we asked respondents who identified as Republican to read a description of a fictional GOP primary race for the U.S. House of Representatives, and to “vote” for one candidate or the other. The reading described two candidates who had similar positions on a few standard Republican concerns: both were antiabortion, both had received A ratings from the National Rifle Association, and both promised to balance the budget. However, one of the candidates included openly anti-Muslim statements as part of his platform, saying he would target “violent Muslim extremists.” Since that was the only difference between the two candidates, choosing to vote for that candidate would suggest someone who believes that Muslims are violent terrorists and a critical national problem.
More Republicans supported the anti-Muslim candidate
Among respondents who identified as Republican in the July 2018 survey, 54 percent voted for the anti-Muslim candidate; 26 percent chose his opponent; and 20 percent said they would not vote for either. The November 2018 survey offered similar results, with 45 percent preferring the anti-Muslim candidate compared to 30 percent who said they would vote for his opponent. These results are statistically significant. Had these been real primaries, the candidate who spoke of attacking Muslims would have easily won the Republican nomination.
Notably, Americans appear to accept politicians’ explicit prejudice only when it’s aimed at Muslims. Only 29 percent (July 2018) and 27 percent (November 2018) of respondents who identified as Republicans said they’d vote for a candidate who wanted to target “violent Black gang members.”
In the 2020 YouGov survey, respondents were asked whether it was acceptable to discriminate against two groups: Muslims or African Americans. Among Republicans, 37 percent approved of discrimination against Muslims, while about 19 percent said the same about African Americans. All of these results are also statistically significant.
My findings are consistent with those from other surveys. In 2015, Gallup found that only 45 percent of Republican voters said they would vote for an otherwise qualified Muslim for president. Similarly, in 2015, the American Values Survey found that 76 percent of Republicans believe Islam is incompatible with the American way of life.
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The current political environment hurts the Muslim community
In sum, it appears that explicit anti-Muslim bias is acceptable to most Republicans. In some situations, Republican politicians may even be rewarded for expressing anti-Muslim positions that would activate potential constituents’ anti-Muslim sentiments.
No wonder comments like Boebert’s are increasingly common among Republican elites. As Omar poignantly stated on the “Mehdi Hasan Show,” “It is important for us to recognize that Islamophobia has been normalized, and it’s been part of the political discourse.”
A political environment in which elites can freely denigrate Muslims and Islam hurts Muslim Americans. Such rhetoric has prompted Arab and Muslim Americans to withdraw from social media and public life more generally, and has been linked to increased anti-Muslim violence. These are just two of the many ways that anti-Muslim rhetoric can negatively impact members of the Muslim community.
As I have previously argued here at The Monkey Cage, when politicians from both parties condemn racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric, they are effective in neutralizing its harm. But Republican leaders don’t appear likely to offer such condemnations so long as attacking Muslims is a productive election strategy.
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Maneesh Arora (@maneesh_arora) is an assistant professor of political science at Wellesley College.