Combating the Nativist Narrative
Week of August 21, 2023
The largest platform for normalizing deadly white nationalist conspiracies yet:
The predictability of the GOP presidential debate stage acting as a platform for normalizing the “invasion” conspiracy only serves to underscore the severity of the white nationalist problem inside the Republican Party. Making the absurd comparison between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and non-white migrants seeking refuge in the U.S., Vivek Ramaswamy falsely claimed there is an ongoing "invasion" along the southern border. Describing the border as under an "invasion" is a dangerous and false white nationalist conspiracy theory that echoes the writings of multiple deadly domestic terrorists and is inexorably tied to the great replacement conspiracy theory. Ramaswamy’s embrace of the white nationalist conspiracy isn’t new or even an outlier for those on the stage but it nevertheless marks a disturbing and dangerous moment in U.S. politics. Fox News moderator Bret Baier, the supposed straight news reporter at Fox, later framed a question to former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson through the lens of the white nationalist "invasion" conspiracy and showed an image of a few men with guns to drive the point home. (Baier neglected to mention that his own outlet covered the fact that both men were quickly arrested.) Hutchinson avoided affirming the white nationalist conspiracy, but he nor any of the other candidates on stage pushed back on this echo of domestic terrorists. Nor are we likely to see any moderation from the platforms given research compiled by Media Matters, which found that since the Buffalo attack by a white nationalist in May 2022, there have been over 170 instances of migrants falsely being described as an “invasion” in the Fox News ecosystem. The other partner for these debates, Rumble, is arguably much worse. Media Matters aptly describes the platform as “a cesspool of antisemitism and pro-Nazi propaganda” and found through their partnership with the RNC “Rumble has been placing ads for the Republican National Committee on pro-Hitler and neo-Nazi videos on its streaming site”.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: “Someone's got to stop normalizing this conduct,” former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie interjected about Trump’s effort to undermine the Constitution and overturn the election. While Christie would probably like his statement to be contained to that particular moment, I think we should heed the warning much more generously. In particular to the white nationalist “invasion” conspiracy that has been the inspiration for multiple domestic terrorist attacks. Offstage challenging that normalization, on Wednesday night MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan weighed in with a particularly poignant piece of pushback worth highlighting. He wrote: “Ramaswamy uses what was once only a neo-Nazi talking point, referring to immigration at the southern border as an ‘invasion.’ Nothing worse than brown folks, kids of immigrants, mainstreaming far-right language on immigration.”
DeSantis’ “day one” promise to invade Mexico:
In response to a question from Martha MacCallum on the debate stage, Ron DeSantis promised that he would send troops into Mexico on “day one” if elected. Underwriting this shocking promise to start a war with Mexico is the pretense that it would be a stateless war against the cartels to attack the fentanyl crisis. No one should, however, take this cheap excuse at face value. Sending troops and dropping bombs in Mexico are not serious proposals to substantively address either issue, but the jingoistic rhetoric is likely to make both issues worse. DeSantis and many of his fellow Republicans are hostile to the complex nuances of actually tackling either issue but are instead solely interested in the bravado in the shallow masculinity of promoting war to impress the radicalized parts of their base. This is dangerous politics with rhetoric that has real-world consequences, not least of which is the possibility of inspiring his supporters to ethnic nationalist vigilante violence. And with the always double down, never back down schoolyard position DeSantis holds, his rhetoric is likely only to escalate. When pressed the morning after the debate on the basics of details of fentanyl production, DeSantis doubled down on the lack of nuance, promising an ever-expanding war effort to include a naval blockade to interdict the trade between China and Mexico. But DeSantis is not alone in the warmongering. Team Trump (MAGA Inc.) began running a national TV spot this week, implicitly promising to turn the southern border into a warzone. The spot ominously claims “President Trump will secure our border and plans to declare war on the cartels and destroy them like he did ISIS,” and ends with an image of a bomb exploding. (Notably, this promise stands in stark contrast to his anti-war stance in ‘16 and in his proud claims about not getting entangled in another war in a different spot that began to air this week.) Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has also made this ISIS comparison alongside calls for sending troops into Mexico.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: Republicans' nuance-free warmongering against Mexico has nothing substantively to do with addressing either fentanyl or the cartels and everything to do with cynical base politics. This rhetoric, however, is likely to exacerbate both problems that Republicans purport to be addressing. Instead, it is dangerous strategic racism angling for power and profit. The militaristic rhetoric built on white nationalist conspiracies doesn't address the problem but seeks to exploit it with coded racist ideas.
The wall of fearmongering and misinformation:
A mnemonic device to racist chant to Trump’s monument to white supremacy, Trump’s border wall has always been more symbol than policy, reinforced by the fact that it has always been a failed mess as a deterrence policy. But this striking symbol of nativism also provides easy and compelling visuals to fearmonger and spread misinformation. A cover page on Tuesday from the New York Post is illustrative of the strategic racism of which the visuals of the wall are constantly exploited. The Post headline reads, “FLOODGATES ARE OPEN (LITERALLY!) Post watches hundreds of illegal migrants cross through border doors the US WELDED open,” emphasis theirs. While the headline implies the dehumanizing language of referring to migrants as a “flood,“they are using the word “literally” correctly as their image does show floodgates along the wall that are open here during monsoon season to prevent the build-up of pressure that could easily topple the wall completely. A fact that underscores the absurdity of the policy itself. And while it is tempting to dismiss this stupidity, that would ignore the intentional strategy of the Republicans and right-wing media to create a fictional xenophobic dystopia for their audience. While the Post may believe this strategic racism drives profit, and the Republican politician believes it to drive votes, it always requires their audience to embrace racist fears over hard facts and logical conclusions. The Post’s story may be a small obfuscation of the truth, but these nativist fictions begin to stack on top of one another, building to more outlandish and threatening, half-truths, lies, and conspiracies.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: While the wall has been a perennial source of misinformation for the last eight years and fact checks abound, nativist narratives with the wall providing the visual backdrop remain ubiquitous. As frustrating as it can be as the opposition continues to push fresh disinformation, there must be facts, context and pushback on the nativist narratives. This week, one excellent example of combating this nativist narrative comes from Laiken Jordahl at the Center for Biological Diversity, who provided one of his straight-to-camera videos with the wall as the backdrop that challenges the floodgate disinformation directly, it's well worth a watch. “I think more than anything, this proves that the wall has never been anything other than political theater,” Jordahl said while showing the floodgates along the wall.
POLITICS UPDATES
GOP Primaries: There is about a year to go in a GOP presidential primary that has already pushed the bounds of nativism in presidential politics with pernicious xenophobic misinformation, conspiracies, and outright lies that will make a roaring cascade into the political discourse. While aggressive strategic xenophobia isn’t completely novel in presidential politics, it is now the price of entry into the primary. As the candidates vie for who is the biggest nativist adopting increasingly extreme positions, it as critical coverage of immigration and border issues isn’t wanting for fact checks, context, and critical pushback. America’s Voice released a media guide this week to encourage coverage that doesn’t exacerbate the dangerous dehumanization emanating from the primary campaigns. AV’s Gabe Ortiz also wrote a handy set of guides to the Republican presidential primary candidates with the five things to know about their immigration plans here, here, here, and here.
Trump: Beyond the news of his arrest in Georgia this week, the Trump campaign tapped a longstanding board member of a hate group as his Massachusetts state campaign chair, Thomas Hodgson. Unfamiliar with Hodgson? Check out this must-read backgrounder from Alex Burness at Bolts Magazine. In short, Hodgson, who has long been on the board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), has helped lead their work to spread their anti-immigrant hate to sheriffs across the nation and has the dubious title of “America’s most anti-immigrant sheriff” after the infamous Joe Arpaio, disgraced former sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County, was defeated in 2016.
GOP Infighting: This week, Punchbowl reported that the leaders in the Freedom Caucus are making moves to help primary Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales (TX-23), who provided a marginal check on their nativist plans. Grabbing headlines and providing stark criticism of Rep. Chip Roy’s asylum ban before ultimately supporting a version in the Child Deportation Act (H.R. 2), Rep. Gonzales made Rep. Roy and his radical nativist allies look bad, and now they appear to be out for vengeance as they look to drag the GOP even further down the xenophobic extremes. Over in the Senate, Republican leadership is weighing in heavy and early in Nevada in the hopes to stave off the nomination of a hard-right conspiracy theorist and the ringleader of the election deniers in the form of Jim Marchant. For the Republican Senate leadership, it's less about being champions of democracy and more about strategic maneuvers to achieve political power, but the fact that this move is necessary is the manifestation of the toxic brew this same leadership has allowed to fester inside their party for the last decade and raging in full display over in the House.
WEEKLY STATS OF NATIVIST NARRATIVE
Of the 400 GOP Twitter accounts we track, this week, they sent:
306 original tweets peddling anti-immigrant attacks mentioning “border”
60 original tweets about “open borders,” with Vivek Ramaswamy tweet having the most reach with 6.9M Views, 19.4K Retweets, and 127.7K Likes.
17 original tweets that used “Biden Border Crisis” with Ted Cruz tweet having the most reach with 243.1K Views, 425 Retweets, and 2,408 Likes.
45 original tweets that mentioned both “fentanyl” and “border” with Jim Jordan tweet having the most reach with 367.1K views, 3,142 Retweets and 9,008 Likes.
