Guess who is fanning the flames of Islamophobia

In recent years, anti-Muslim rhetoric from Republican officeholders, candidates and media personalities that once would have been politically disqualifying is increasingly being met with silence, rationalization or reward from many conservatives. Nowhere is this trend clearer than in Texas, even though Muslims make up only 2 percent of the population there.

With border security receding as an issue, warnings about “radical Islam” and the supposed “Islamification” of America serve as a new means to mobilize conservative voters.

Last year, after investors affiliated with the East Plano Islamic Center sought to build a small Muslim-friendly residential community outside Dallas, Republican political candidates denounced the project as evidence of the “Islamification of Texas,” and state officials launched five investigations into it. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed legislation prohibiting “Sharia compounds” — insisting, with unintended irony, that religious freedom was at stake. And Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed three lawsuits seeking to halt the development on allegations of securities fraud and zoning violations.

A Department of Justice review found no evidence of wrongdoing, but that did not stop the Department of Housing and Urban Development from launching its own investigation into claims of religious discrimination, even though project’s organizers have repeatedly emphasized the community will be open to people of all faiths. 

Meanwhile, Abbott labeled the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a prominent Muslim advocacy group, a “terrorist organization,” Paxton launched another investigation into a different Muslim-oriented development, and the state’s comptroller excluded two dozen Islamic schools from participation in a state voucher program. 

Once-fringe rhetoric is increasingly finding a home in national Republican politics. At a Turning Point USA........

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