Combating the Nativist Narrative
Week of August 7, 2023
Crafting applause lines for deadly ethnic political violence never ends well:
Over the last few weeks, Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been working calls for ethnic political violence into his stump speech. Last week at a campaign stop in Iowa, DeSantis paused for applause after claiming that cartel members trafficking drugs “are gonna end up stone cold dead.” While no one disputes the need to address the serious problems of the cartels or the urgency of addressing the fentanyl crisis, DeSantis isn’t engaged in a serious conversation about either here. Instead, his calls for summary executions of alleged cartel drug traffickers is an extremely dangerous courting of racist vigilante violence. Pressed on the issue in an NBC News interview that aired Monday, Dasha Burns asked, “How do you know you’re using deadly force against the right people?” DeSantis' unsurprising but nevertheless chilling answer is that you just know and that he would empower law enforcement to make that judgment. Not to mention this would be an unprecedented use of the death penalty. An additional layer here is the factual reality that almost all the illicit fentanyl is smuggled in through legal ports of entry alongside commercial traffic, mostly by U.S. citizens. But what DeSantis is doing here is normalizing targeted deadly violence towards people based on the color of their skin or the accent they speak with who find themselves near the border. His assertion makes it clear the investigation of the factual links to cartel activity and drug smuggling is not of primary concern, as DeSantis linked the deadly judgments here to those of war. Underscoring his point, DeSantis commented on unauthenticated grainy images of a few men with guns as an “example of why I will authorize use of deadly force at the border.” He went on to invoke the white nationalist conspiracy theory about an ongoing “invasion” at the southern border that has inspired multiple domestic terrorist attacks.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: It would be hard to overstate the seriousness of DeSantis’ move here. Searching for historical parallels of political rallies that involve cheers for racialized political violence lands you in some of the darkest chapters of history. And without over-asserting a historical determinism, serious warning flags should be loudly and prominently raised at this development in DeSantis’ campaign. We should avoid the trap of the complicated challenge of dealing with the cartels as a fig leaf defense of DeSantis’ calls for deadly ethnic violence. There are serious and honest debates to be had about combating the cartels, but those should not be confused with the wanted calls for extrajudicial killings to boost the political prospects of a wanna-be demagogue.
The saw blades welded to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s river wall are designed to kill:
As we have previously noted, Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star is separating families, pushing children and pregnant women in the Rio Grande, and knowingly inflicting deadly conditions onto migrants seeking a legal claim to asylum. He’s defended these actions by citing white nationalist conspiracy theories. But the saw blades welded to the water buoys that received additional attention this week is illustrative of the horrific policy manifestations of embracing white nationalist conspiracy theories that completely dehumanize the Black and brown migrants looking for refuge in the United States. Gov. Abbott’s defense that his usurpation of the clearly defined federal authority over immigration matters is justified by invoking the “invasion” clause in the Constitution is not only based on a white nationalist conspiracy theory that has inspired multiple domestic terrorist attacks, it has also previously been laughed out of court. As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Policy Director at the American Immigration Council, noted: “When multiple states (including Texas) tried to argue in the 90s that the Invasion Clause applied to migrant arrivals (at the time higher than today) they were laughed out of every court they tried it in.” He cites the 2nd Circuit’s definition where they wrote: “In order for the state to be afforded the protection of the Invasion Clause, it must be exposed to armed hostility from another political entity, such as another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.” The notion that desperate families fleeing for their lives seeking legal entry through the asylum system would rise to that definition exposes this defense as the crackpot white nationalism it truly is.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: The fact that the information about the saw blades attached to the buoys was not entirely new information but received a lot of attention this week is instructive for combating nativist narratives and policies. It is a reminder that elected Democrats engaging in the issue gives a boost to the coverage and pushback. The videos also helped provide a visceral clarity and undeniable evidence of the horrific reality of Gov. Abbott’s policy. As Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) captures so powerfully with the call, “I want you to look right here at this” as he points and describes the “chainsaw-type device they hid right in the middle of these buoys.” The Congressman’s video is worth a watch and a share.
The anti-immigrant visuals pipeline:
This week the pipeline’s chief operator Bill Melugin of Fox “News” distributed grainy photos which he claimed depicted a “group of suspected cartel gunmen armed with rifles & body armor” crossing the southern border. Then Melugin’s images predictably began to rush through the pipeline as leading elected Republicans and the right-wing media infrastructure and influencers began to circulate and promote the images back and forth. Sen. Cruz, Stephen Miller, the Border Patrol union, Mercedes Schlapp, the Heritage Foundation, and at least 19 other elected Republicans, among many others, reposted Melugin’s images this week. Fox “News” has also run several segments leading with Melugin’s images that invite elected Republicans to comment on the images. For example, Melugin appeared on Stuart Varney’s show with a segment that ended with comments from North Dakota Governor and presidential candidate Doug Burgum. And Maria Bartiromo had on the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), on leading with the absurd association between the images and the CBP One app. And after the segment aired, the House Homeland Security Committee promoted the interview through the official .gov email. The next stop on the anti-immigrant visuals pipeline is for the images to show up in political ads. This pipeline will continue to gush with some of the misleading imagery becoming completely ingrained into the nativist narratives, and these images published this week will likely continue to be waved around without any real confirmation of their authenticity or relevant context.
COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: Unlike confronting some of the other nativist narratives that have permeated the mainstream, calling additional attention to these images is not ideal in most circumstances. As we monitor to see if these images permeate the right-wing media bubble, there are two angles worth combating. (1) Several leading Republican figures have used these images to justify their calls for deadly vigilante violence, invoking the “invasion” conspiracy, and this threat to public safety is worth noting. (2) As discussed above, there is an anti-immigrant visuals pipeline that lubricates much of the nativist narrative machine. Naming and shaming this machine can help prevent harmful and misleading images and videos from making their way into the larger media landscape.
POLITICS UPDATES
AZ Sen: Election denier and avid promoter of the deadly white nationalist “invasion” conspiracy, Kari Lake, reportedly looks to be making moves towards the Senate primary. Still never conceding her gubernatorial loss in ‘22, Lake will make her Senate bid a project to further mainstream bigoted conspiracies and attacks on our democracy. She would be set to face off against a hard-right influencer and Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. While Lake’s extremism is more a liability than an asset, this race could shape up in unpredictable ways, and a threat to public safety and democracy would be exacerbated if Lake again takes a leading spot on a GOP presidential ticket, regardless of the outcome.
Hate and violence inside the GOP: Christopher Mathias is out with a report in HuffPost revealing right-wing commentator Richard Hinania wrote for white supremacist sites. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) has called him a “friend” and a “really interesting thinker.” Meanwhile, with Congress in recess, some members have gotten straight to work rallying the hard-right violent elements in their districts. On Monday, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) spoke at an event alongside a militia activist who has advocated and organized the formation of hard-right paramilitary groups. And at a town hall meeting on Tuesday night, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called the execution of her political opponents “the right note.” As Rep. Greene gave an approving nod to political violence, Reuters released a report this week noting that political violence in the U.S. has reached a 50-year high.
OH Issue 1: Ohio voters delivered a decisive 14-point defeat to the anti-democracy Issue 1. The only question on the August 8th ballot, Issue 1 was an attempt by the hard-right to raise the threshold for a ballot amendment to pass from a simple majority to 60 percent ahead of a ballot initiative this November to ensure the option to access to abortion care in the State Constitution. Realizing that their anti-choice stance was unpopular, the Yes campaign tried to duck the abortion issue and ran bigoted anti-drag and transphobic ads instead. The vote is the latest piece of evidence of the right’s overconfidence in thinly veiled bigoted fearmongering as a strategy that can deliver wins at the ballot box. It’s similar to our findings from the ‘22 cycle, when the massive investment in nativist, strategic racism failed to deliver for the GOP. The current structure inside the Republican Party makes it highly unlikely they will switch strategies over the next year and half, so we should be ready to exploit their extremist overreach. But l will leave you with the recommendation of comedian Trae Crowder’s biting summary of the right’s failed anti-democracy effort in Ohio, it's worth a watch.
WEEKLY STATS OF NATIVIST NARRATIVE
Of the 400 GOP Twitter accounts we track, this week, they sent:
275 original tweets peddling anti-immigrant attacks mentioning “border”
45 original tweets about “open borders,” with Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweet having the most reach with 692.2K Views, 1,902 Retweets, and 6,457 Likes.
23 original tweets that used “Biden Border Crisis” with Gov. Ron DeSantis tweet having the most reach with 297.2K Views, 513 Retweets, and 3,010 Likes.
32 original tweets that mentioned both “fentanyl” and “border” with Sen. Marsha Blackburn tweet having the most reach with 48.4K views, 993 Retweets and 3,092 Likes.
