Combating the Nativist Narrative
Week of July 24, 2023
THREE OPPOSITION MESSAGES FROM THE WEEK
House Republicans exacerbate leading terror threat with DHS Secretary impeachment push:
The House Judiciary Committee hauled DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in for another hearing this week as part of their two-year-long prebaked political impeachment effort underwritten with white nationalist conspiracy theories about a so-called “invasion” and “great replacement.” This rhetoric echoes the ideas that have motivated multiple domestic terrorists and is a leading threat of vigilante and terrorist violence facing the nation. An exchange between Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) and Secretary Mayorkas from the hearing affirmed that when elected leaders echo the “invasion” rhetoric, they fuel the threat of bigoted political violence. “When elected officials repeat great replacement rhetoric including the language of ‘invasion,’ are they putting a target on the backs of immigrants and people of color?” Rep. Johnson asked. To which Secretary Mayorkas affirmed, "It certainly fuels the threat landscape we encounter." This point is critical and is not an idle concern. America’s Voice identified 90 examples of Republican Members of the 118th Congress amplifying dangerous white nationalist conspiracy theories in their official capacity, including 11 Members of the House Judiciary Committee alone. But to underscore the fact that Republicans are actively throwing fuel on the threat of domestic extremist violence by echoing the white nationalist conspiracies as part of their nativist impeachment attacks, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) used his time at the Congressional dais to peddle a version of those deadly conspiracies. Meanwhile, over in a House Homeland Security hearing, Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) was also amplifying the very “invasion” language Secretary Mayorkas said was fueling the threat of violence.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: Ranking Member Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY), opening remarks from the House Judiciary Committee laid out an object lesson for how to combat the range of nativist narratives that we have seen on a near-endless loop these last six months from the House majority. “Throughout this hearing, you will hear the same bogus claims that we have been hearing for the last six months, some of it dangerous, some of it petty, none of it true,” said Rep. Nadler as he went on to inoculate against the pernicious lies about an invasion, open borders, and fentanyl. Check out part of his remarks below.
The white nationalist defense of pushing pregnant women into a deadly river:
As we noted last week, there is a tragic but predictable throughline from the white nationalist rhetoric adopted by the GOP and Texas governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lonestar’s directive to push children and pregnant women into a deadly river. This week, following the legal challenge from the White House, Republicans from the Texas congressional delegation quickly jumped in to adamantly defend the horrific practice by doubling down on the false claims that there is an actual “invasion” afoot in Texas. Early in the week, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) shared a video defending Governor Abbott‘s Operation Lonestar by asserting the dehumanizing conspiracy that migrants seeking safety and asylum in the U.S. constitute a literal “invasion.” On Wednesday, Rep. August Pflueger (R-TX), at the House Homeland Security Committee hearing, defended the program with the dubious citing Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution, which says every state “shall protect each of them against Invasion” to invoke the conspiracy theory that has inspire multiple deadly terrorist attacks over the last few years. Then another six members of the Texas delegation joined Rep. Arrington on Thursday for a press conference to similarly push “invasion” and “state’s rights” defenses of the program. This vociferous defense underscores the callus brutality that predictably lives downstream of dehumanization and that this doom loop will continue to slowly produce increasingly horrific outcomes.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: Speaking at a UnidosUS conference on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris called out the anti-immigrant extremism rearing its ugly head both in Florida’s show-me-your-papers law and the reports from Texas to push children and pregnant women into a deadly river. A welcome example of combating disastrous nativism. Our suggestion: more of this, say it louder and more often (see the clip the VP shared this week, also see the video embedded below)
The GOP’s pesky Nazi problem keeps rearing its ugly head:
Three stories this week highlight a disturbing pattern simmering just below the surface inside the Republican Party. First up is Florida Governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ choice to hire Nate Hochman as a speechwriter for his campaign despite the public knowledge of his support of the notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes. After months on the job, this week it was reported that DeSantis fired Hochman after a video he made employing a Nazi symbol was made public. That same “black sun” Hochman used to frame DeSantis in his video also adorned the front covers of the racist screeds of the mass murders who carried out terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand and Buffalo, New York. Second is Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has a long, long public history cozying up to white nationalists, was at it again this week, pushing out a Holocaust-denying website that has posted content telling readers to "stand up for Hitler” from his official newsletter. This is not the first time he’s used the newsletter to push out extremist ideology, also linking to another anti-semitic website in April, Media Matters said. And third, Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced a bill this week attacking the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. Rep. Gaetz's effort to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants is as unoriginal as it is legally dubious. Rep. Gaetz (who you may recall, has explicitly endorsed the white nationalist great replacement conspiracy theory) isn’t explicitly expressing a politics of “Blut und Boden” here; nevertheless, the seriousness of the threat in his nativism here should not be ignored, but sharply and unequivocally condemned.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: What we see here and over the last three years isn’t a coincidence of bigoted extremism but a pattern. The GOP has adopted it into its core DNA. But the utter lack of internal accountability towards white supremacy inside the GOP isn’t an inevitable fact that should be just shrugged off. The Republican Party of 2019 and then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled former Iowa Rep. Steve King off committee assignments for his blatant white nationalism. This recent history is a reminder that the lack of internal accountability is a choice. It is a choice to drive full speed ahead down white nationalist road. And it is this choice, the shift into a higher gear, that should be a flashing warning sign that combating this problem is an urgent task. Notably, the Arizona Democratic Party is waving the warning flag and bringing receipts.
POLITICS UPDATES
President: The New York Times is out with a handy summary of the Republican presidential primary candidates' positions on immigration and the border. And as Times’ Maggie Astor astutely characterizes the situation as what was “once set apart the right-wing fringe” is not standard fare, “but several Republican candidates now support even more exceptional measures, such as using military force to secure the border or ending birthright citizenship.” With more indictments for Trump and the DeSantis campaign imploding, there could be an opening for another candidate’s star to rise. However, what is clear in the Times outline and affirmed by our own analysis, is that even with a possible shake-up at the top of the ticket, the commitment to xenophobic extremism is locked in until there are more potent political consequences for failing efficacy of their investment in nativism.
Alabama: In a rhyme with the past, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey declared her open defiance of the Supreme Court in order to deny African Americans in the state equal representation in Congress. Where George Wallace's style of aggressive racist dog-whistle politics and bigoted political theater for the cameras inspired much of today’s GOP, Gov. Ivey is now innovating with ways to assert a white nationalist power structure with the thinly veiled policy of congressional maps. Gov. Ivey may eventually be forced to change the congressional maps as the University of Alabama was forced to integrate, but the politics of racist defiance may portend more for the future of the Republican Party than anyone is ready to admit. The assault on the desperately unfulfilled American promise of a multi-racial democracy here is not unrelated to the fight for immigrant rights. The thinly veiled white nationalist sentiment festering inside the Republican Party is intersectional in its threat. There is another rhyme between Texas Governor Greg Abbott's balk at the federal government's prerogative over immigration and the dehumanization he is metering out on non-white migrants and that of Gov. Ivey’s actions.
CA-22: It is looking like there may be a competitive primary for the Democrat spot to take on Republican Rep. David Valadao in this critical California battleground race. Valadao won by a close 4 points in the 2022 midterms but is one of 18 Biden-won districts that Republican members currently hold. Valadao was able to eke out a less than a point win in ‘20, but distinguished himself from the extreme nativism gipping the rest of the party, running several pro-immigrant ads, including one that featured an endorsement from a DACA recipient. Now, Rep. Valadao has a track record that says the opposite. His first 15 votes as part of the 118th Congress were for Kevin McCarthy, who promised to block any attempt to provide a pathway to citizenship, even for Dreamers or the farmworkers from his agricultural district. And he has continued to vote to empower the extremists and obstructionists in his party, providing a critical vote for H.R.2, the Child Deportation Act, which his colleagues promoted with white nationalist conspiracy theories. He also sided with the xenophobic extremists on several other key votes, including Rep. Lauren Bobert’s Biden impeachment bill that relied on the “invasion” conspiracy.
WEEKLY STATS OF NATIVIST NARRATIVE
Of the 400 GOP Twitter accounts we track, this week, they sent:
319 original tweets peddling anti-immigrant attacks mentioning “border”
48 original tweets about “open borders,” with Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet having the most reach with 388.5K Views, 6,242 Retweets, and 18.1K Likes.
11 original tweets that used “Biden Border Crisis” with Ted Cruz tweet having the most reach with 539.9K Views, 5,321 Retweets, and 23.7K Likes.
39 original tweets that mentioned both “fentanyl” and “border” with Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet having the most reach with 422.7K views, 4,974 Retweets and 18.1K Likes.
