Combating the Nativist Narrative

Week of July 10, 2023

THREE OPPOSITION MESSAGES FROM THE WEEK

(1) It’s not just Sen. Tuberville, the GOP’s white nationalist problem runs much deeper:

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) appeared to defend white nationalism on CNN on Monday night when host Kaitlan Collins asked Tuberville about his previous stance defending white nationalism in the military. But Tuberville’s comments are, tragically, far from an outlier in today's GOP. On Wednesday, in the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) casually echoed the white nationalist conspiracy theory about a so-called "invasion." We have also found 33 other Members of the 118th Congress employing this rhetoric in their official capacity another 81 times in the first six months of the year. And as I regularly note in this letter, Republicans have largely adopted white nationalist conspiracy theories for their messaging on immigration and the border.

COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a solid rebuke to Tuberville from the Senate floor. While the pushback to Tuberville is vital, we cannot and must not end the criticism and accountability at the most blatant examples of when Republicans attempt to normalize white nationalist ideas but expand the circle of criticism and accountability. Check out one example from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism of a concrete ask for Sen. McConnell to put some action behind his words condemning white supremacy in the military in response to Tuberville's comments this week.  

(2) Another week, another set of hearings for the House majority to bolster their demagoguery:

The House GOP Caucus scheduled a pair of anti-immigrants hearings in the Homeland and Judiciary Committees this week to push the debunked, dehumanizing and dangerous myths about a correlation between immigration and crime and the fentanyl crisis. As America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas said of the hearings this week: “House Republicans are again using their majority to seek to amplify dangerous nativist disinformation and scapegoat and fearmonger over immigrants. This week, they aren’t acting in good faith to address the fentanyl crisis or focus on real threats to public safety. Instead, it’s all politics, disinformation and strategic racism to falsely blame non-white migrants for the nation's problems.” Check out this evergreen piece for combating the nativist narratives for these seemingly endless set of hearings. 

COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: Rep. Pramila Jayapal and her Democratic colleagues provided some good examples to combat the nativist narratives on display in the hearings this week, with Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC) deploying a slightly different approach. 

(3) Why improve working conditions for working families when you can falsely blame immigrants:

Arguably one of the most pervasive and persistent myths is that immigrants are a threat to wages and jobs of native-born working families. This is of course, in spite of the fat that there as been the decades-long economic consensus debunking this nativist narrative. It persists out of a combination of factors but basically it’s a trick by those who benefit from this lie both economically and politically. It is assisted by righ-wing media headlines like the one this week from Breitbart that read “Joe Biden’s Migrants Take Jobs, Americans Lose Jobs”. Or it’s bolstered by casual unchecked assertions by the likes of New York Times’ columnist David Leonhardt in a recent highly questionable piece that stated low wage workers “often worry that their wages will decrease” because of immigrants without adding any facts beyond those perceived worries.  Important to note that Leonhardt’s overall premise was partially contradicted by the annual Gallup data on immigration also released this week. 

COMBATING THE NARRATIVE: No, immigrants aren’t a threat, they’re essential for our economy. Look at the data and listen to the expert consensus: immigration is critical to a thriving U.S. economy, from essential work to job creation to the tax base. Republicans, however, are trying to perpetuate the tired and debunked myths that new immigrants are a threat to the lives and livelihoods of native born working families, all while their own rhetoric is creating a climate that threatens public safety.

THREE POLITICS UPDATES 

• TX-34: On Tuesday, Republican Mayra Flores announced she is seeking a rematch for the seat she briefly held after winning an extremely low turnout special election. While Flores received outsized national attention as a Latina Republican along the border, Flores is no moderate, and has embraced the white nationalist “invasion” conspiracy and saddled up to the extremists in the party. Flores is adept at using her immigrant heritage to deflect criticism from her nativism but her track record of embracing xenophobic extremism is clear.

• Pres: This morning at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, Tucker Carlson interviewed the GOP presidential primary candidates on stage, despite Carlson’s very public history of racism and mainstreaming white supremacy. Telling of the nativist doom loop the GOP presidential primary is locked into, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott “joked” about appointing Carlson as his “Bye-Bye Ambassador” in response to a question about our undocumented neighbors, according to reporting from Philip Wegmann. While the off-handed pandering isn’t a personal promise, this flippant remark is indicative of how normalized the white nationalism is to the GOP’s immigration approach. 

• NDAA votes: This week, the House of Representatives brought the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to the floor for votes. Normally a bipartisan undertaking, the extreme MAGA Freedom Caucus turned the bill into a political exercise to attack reproductive rights, transgender people and the very notion of equality. Of note, many House Republicans who purport to be “moderate” and tell the media how extreme their caucus has become, voted with those very extremists. For example, Rep. Ronny Jackson’s anti-abortion amendment passed 221-213. (Only one Dem voted for it. Only 2 Republicans against.) The full House passed the NDAA with all of the MAGA language intact by a vote of 219-210. (Four Rs voted no while four Dems voted yes).