Right Continues to Exploit Hamas Attacks to Advance Nativist Agenda Including Attacking Legal Immigration:
On Monday, Jack Posobiec, hard-right influencer and white nationalist collaborator, took to X to attack legal immigration with demagoguing disinformation, writing: “I heard that Hamas and Hezbollah have been targeting the legal immigration system to sneak entire Hamas families into America through chain migration.” This baseless strategic racist maneuver is on-brand for Posobiec and was quickly echoed by the white nationalist and Former Senior Trump Advisor, Stephen Miller who claimed, “Doubtlessly this is happening.” While these leading hard-right influencers stated attacks on legal immigration is not currently the open position of much of the GOP they are exploiting the current situation to drive their agenda further into the mainstream. As we noted last week, the calls for ethnic immigration bans from the presidential campaigns similarly seek to exploit the situation to create inroads to further restrict legal immigration. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) also reposted Posobiec’s attack, adding some more fearmongering about terrorists and disinformation about the supposed “open border.” But the right also continues to use conspiracies that manipulate fears of terrorism to advance their wide ranging nativist political as well as policy agenda. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, echoed, without evidence, the conspiracy about alleged Hamas “sleeper cells” entering the US through the southern border to Fox News as part of the effort to keep Republicans’ in Congress the myopic focus on the border. The headline read, “McCarthy concerned of terror 'sleeper cells' in US amid Israel-Hamas war, says speaker must prioritize border”. Following their great replacement theory argument for banning Palestinian refugees, the Heritage Foundation continues to push the “sleeper cell” conspiracy as they too push the new Speaker to push an extreme nativist agenda. … falsely equating all Palestinian civilians with Hamas.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: Without evidence, Republicans and their allies are creating a conspiratorial narrative that draws on the specter of terrorism lined with a veneer of racism to advance a radical nativist political and policy agenda. This cynical political strategy seeks to exploit pain and fear slowly escalating the rhetoric and policy promises towards a political project that comes at the direct expense of working people. It is the core strategy behind the GOP’s nativist narrative and an example of its construction is being built before our eyes.
Nativist Narrative Machine at Work, Spinning General Info into “Evidence” for an Evidence-Free Conspiracy:
On Monday, lead operator of the nativist narrative machine, Fox News’ Bill Melugin picked up a story from the hard-right Daily Caller about a memo CBPs San Diego field office sent to officers. The memo, as CBP later explained, is part of the “wide range of context for situational awareness” and “not threat assessment” that described three common patches associated with Hamas and Hezbollah militants. The Daily Caller headline, however, declared “EXCLUSIVE: Feds Warn That Hamas, Hezbollah Could Be Crossing Southern Border.” Working its ways through the gears of the machine, Fox amplified the misleading clickbait a day later with the headline “CBP memo sounds alarm on Hamas, Hezbollah fighters potentially using southern border to enter US.” Buried in the article, Fox contradicts their headline with a quote from a CBP spokesperson that they have “seen no indication of Hamas-directed foreign fighters seeking to make entry into the United States.” Republican Members of Congress picked up their part of the machine, sharing the story and adding more confirming legitimacy and distribution of the story. For example, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) reposted the Melugin piece and turned it into a political attack, writing: “There is a very obvious national security threat at our southern border & the Biden Admin is turning a blind eye.” Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), provides another example, echoing the Fox headline and posting an edited clip from a Fox segment with Peter Doocy referencing the story. From here, mainstream media responds to the concocted narrative either lifting it beyond the right-wing bubble or providing necessary fact checking. An ABC News piece ran a headline echoing the misleading right-wing narrative even as their sub-headline provides the critical piece of information “But there's no indication Hamas has directed extremists to enter the country.” An headline on this story from Vice provides better counter example “No, Hamas and Hezbollah Are Not Sending Fighters Across the Southern Border”
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: The nativist narrative machine is not new but it is efficient at producing products that are widely available inside the right-wing bubble. While facts and logic hold little way inside that bubble it is critical that the fearmongering misleading information remains as contained as possible. Headlines like the one from ABC News miss the mark and provide legitimacy to the right-wing nativist narrative machine. The Vice and one from Fox 5 provide the alternative, and serious news organizations must be hyper aware not to fall into the trap and become the cog in the nativist narrative machine.
Hate and Violence Spikes Amid Ongoing Rise of Antisemitism and White Nationalism Five Years After Attack at Tree of Life in Pittsburgh:
Today, marks five years from horrific antisemitic attack where a white nationalist who subscribed to the great replacement theory murdered 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Since then, the great replacement theory has become a mainstay of Republicans, including the new House Speaker Mike Johnson (more below.) Tragically, the rise of antisemitism and forms of hate have only continued to grow. New hate crime data from the FBI showed an increase from the year prior with antisemitic hate crimes the second followed by anti-Black hate crimes. A new report The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism notes that there “have been far more public neo-Nazi actions in the US in 2023 than the two years prior,” and that we will likely see more of this activity as the 2024 elections heat up. Activities like that of the neo-Nazis in Montana outside of synagogue this week with white supremacist and anti-refugee replacement theory messages that echo that of the deadly shooter of five years ago. Antisemtic and anti-Muslim hate has also spiked in recent weeks. The Anti Defamation League has tracked a 333% increase in antisemitic incidents, recording 312 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7-23, 2023. Princeton’s Bridging Divides Initiatives also noted 75 “ attacks, vandalism, fights, or other offline violence or direct threats” throughout the month of October. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has also noted a spike in threats and hate against the Muslim community. All of this bigoted activity stacks on top of some deeply concerning underlying trends that indicate such bigoted political violence may continue to get worse. Newly released research from PPRI found 33% of Republicans believe “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country”. Also, 65% of Republicans believe the great replacement conspiracy theory. 87% of those who consume far-right news believe this deadly racist fiction.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: The threat of expanded bigoted political violence is a difficult reality to face but the data is a wailing siren that gives additional weight to the collection of incidences racking our nation. There is a serious and urgent problem here that goes well beyond the threat to public safety. It is made worse by political leaders normalizing and amplifying bigoted conspiratorial rhetoric. Political leaders play a critical role here and far too many on the right are actively accelerating this problem. There is rarely a direct one-to-one between political violence and political speech but there is an undeniable through line between the two.
POLITICS UPDATES
Speaker: Republicans finally elected a Speaker of the House elevating Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to the top job and second in line for the Oval Office, a major victory for the hard-right. Take it from two of the chief architects of this chaos, as Aaron Rupar noted. On Steve Bannon’s show, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said "If you don't think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you're not paying attention." Among many extremist positions, Johnson has been a regular promoter of the white nationalist great replacement conspiracy theory - the deadly lie that inspired multiple domestic terrorist attack like the one five years ago in Pittsburg. Writing on the topic this morning, Greg Sargent at the Washington Post notes: “Johnson and other Republicans who make such claims, did not explicitly allege a plot to replace Whites with non-Whites. But those playing this game know exactly what they’re implying.” In another telling moment for the kind of politics Johnson brings to the Speaker’s office was the effusive praise the leader of the hate-group Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian, gave Johnson in Breitbart after he was elected. Leaving no doubt that he will continue to keep the GOP cruelty and chaos agenda for the border front and center, Johnson proclaimed“we have a catastrophe at our southern border,” in his very first speech.
Trump’s Escalation: Ahead of a speech on Monday in New Hampshire, where he called for the “largest deportation effort you’ve ever seen” Trump wrote a white nationalist conspiratorial screed on his social media platform: “The fight in GAZA is ‘coming home’ to the USA. The tens of thousands of strong young men from the Middle East, that have already ‘invaded’ our Country, and are continuing to come, totally unchecked, will become a problem the likes of which we have never seen before… STOP THE ONSLAUGHT, STOP THE INVASION!” In his speech Trump went on to assert that Biden will “turn the United States into a hotbed of Jihadists” and that he would “keep radical, Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country” while reasserting his promise to institute his travel ban. It may not be surprising that Donald Trump says extreme and bigoted things, but that he is still able to do so after eight years at the top of the political scene should be deeply troubling. Not just for the lack of rejection, but the culmination of eight years of pushing boundaries results in going from calling migrants drug dealers to describing them in white nationalist conspiratorial rhetoric that actively courts deadly political violence. The steady escalation of rhetoric and policy promises continues. While we may not be shocked, we should be sobered by the immediate and cumulative effects. Trump isn’t going away nor will his rhetoric plateau but will continue to escalate. He has already crossed a dangerous threshold of threatening democracy and courting political violence, but he can always still get worse. But there still remains the opportunity to hold him accountable.
AZ-08: In quick succession after Republican Debbie Lesko announced she would not seek re-election in the safe Republican district north of Phoenix, both failed statewide Republicans Abe Hamadeh and Blake Masters said they would compete for the seat. Alongside Kari Lake, these men filled out the losing slate of top of the ticket Republicans that was marked for its extremism. Masters, Hamadeh, and Lake all ran hard on the white nationalist replacement and invasion conspiracies and election denialism. Masters and Hamadeh ran some of the ugliest campaigns last cycle, and we can expect they will continue to be trapped in that extremist doom loop that works to undermine their campaigns. But this race may be a perfect encapsulation of the party at large as two election deniers and promoters of the replacement and invasion conspiracies battle it out with each other of a safe Republican district after losing statewide elections in a critical battleground because of their extremism and now they will compete to a race to the bottom that may even put this would be safe seat in play.
WEEKLY STATS OF NATIVIST NARRATIVE
Of the 525 GOP Twitter accounts we track, this week, they sent:
578 original tweets peddling anti-immigrant attacks mentioning “border”
100 original tweets about “open borders,” with Vivek Ramaswamy tweet having the most reach with 421K Views, 936 Retweets, and 6.4K Likes.
38 original tweets that used “Biden Border Crisis” with Jim Jordan tweet having the most reach with 197.5K Views, 1.9K Retweets, and 5.5K Likes.
19 original tweets that mentioned both “fentanyl” and “border” with Vivek Ramaswamy tweet having the most reach with 276.8K views, 891 Retweets and 7.2K Likes.