The GOP’s increasing blind eye to anti-Muslim bigotry

Over the past year, a trio of House Republicans — Reps. Randy Fine of Florida, Brandon Gill of Texas and Andy Ogles of Tennessee — have made a series of anti-Muslim remarks, saying “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” labeling Muslim congresswomen “terrorists,” expressing a preference for dogs over Muslims, telling now-New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to “go back to the Third World” because he ate rice with his hands, and saying that Muslims “breed their way through our society.”

“Over the past year, a trio of House Republicans have said “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” labeled Muslim congresswomen “terrorists,” expressed a preference for dogs over Muslims, told now-New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to “go back to the Third World” because he ate rice with his hands, and said that Muslims “breed their way through our society”

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President Donald Trump, meanwhile, added to his increasingly xenophobic recent commentary two weeks ago by advocating for sending two Muslim congresswomen “back from where they came.”

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The most recent entry was Ogles’ Monday post on X that “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” and in the two days since that post GOP leaders largely sought to avoid the issue publicly.

Speaker Mike Johnson said, “I’ve spoken to those members, and all members as I always do, about our tone and our message and what we say,” and added “We respect everyone’s beliefs and their right to live out their beliefs and to speak freely about their beliefs, and have that conviction,” but then expounded at length about the dangers of Sharia law, which he claimed “animates this.”

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Johnson argued that “When you seek to come to a country and not assimilate, but to impose Sharia law — Sharia law is in conflict with the US Constitution — that is that conflict that people are talking about” and that “It is not about people as Muslims; it’s about those who seek to impose a different belief system that is in direct conflict with the Constitution.”

Majority Whip Tom Emmer also sought to avoid directly condemning Ogles, focusing on criticizing people who he said decline to assimilate, commit fraud or believe in radical ideology, and after repeated pressing he suggested some Muslims were “good people,” naming Muhammad Ali and Ahmad Rashad.

“Over the past year, a trio of House Republicans have said “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” labeled Muslim congresswomen “terrorists,” expressed a preference for dogs over Muslims, told now-New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to “go back to the Third World” because he ate rice with his hands, and said that Muslims “breed their way through our society”

CNN

A few Republicans did voice objections: Rep. Carlos Giménez of Florida called Ogles’ post “inappropriate,” Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama said, “I don’t agree with that,” and Trump administration official Richard Grenell told Ogles on X, “Stop attacking the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

Despite those limited rebukes, Ogles posted again late Tuesday, “Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back.”

The article places these incidents in a pattern: less than a month ago Fine posted, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” and later introduced the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act” after saying he was responding to a pro-Palestinian activist’s joke about dogs being “unclean,” with Megyn Kelly as a notable conservative calling Fine’s post bigoted while many GOP leaders said little.

The pattern culminated after Trump’s State of the Union, when Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota heckled him and he posted that “we should send them back from where they came — as fast as possible,” a remark the article contrasts with the major scandal and large rebukes that followed a similar 2019 comment; this time, the article notes, Republicans have said basically nothing publicly.

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The piece also cites Trump’s broader comments about Somali immigrants — “I don’t want them in our country,” and “Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don't want them in our country” — and warns that it is often hard for Republicans to rebuke a president who so dominates their political movement and that not doing so risks emboldening others on the right to say similarly bigoted things as these comments proliferate.