The Dictatorship

Texas Republicans have a new campaign strategy — and a surprisingly retro boogeyman

Published

3 weeks ago

February 22, 2026

Feb. 21, 2026, 6:00 AM EST

In the run-up to the Texas primaries, the issue taking center stage in the Lone Star State is not affordability, inflation or the border. It’s religion. Specifically, Islam.

What began as a crowded field of Republican hopefuls jockeying for attention has devolved into a campaign of bigotry.

This isn’t fringe language. It’s now part of the mainstream GOP campaigning strategy.

This isn’t fringe language. It’s now part of the mainstream GOP campaigning strategy.

“The Muslim community is the boogeyman for this cycle,” Texas GOP consultant Vinny Minchillo told Politico with disturbing candor. “One hundred percent this message works — there’s no question about it.”

For Republican candidates, the most effective lever they can pull to draw attention increasingly is fear, not facts.

One GOP candidate for Texas attorney general has ads asserting that politicians have “imported millions of Muslims into our country.” Without citing evidence, the ad links them to crime, terrorism and even claims that Muslims want “illegal cities” in order to “impose Sharia law.”

Another candidate publicly withdrew from a community event at a mosque, saying his security advised him against attending, and later bemoaned “how much more dangerous the Islamization of Texas has made our state.”

Another Republican candidate burned a Quran and declared that “your daughters will be raped and your sons beheaded unless we stop Islam once and for all.”

In state and federal primaries across Texas, Republican candidates are speaking about a Muslim invasion into their communities to impose Sharia law. Many are vowing to “fight radical Islam.”

Even Sen. John Cornyn and his most prominent challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, have invoked fear of Muslims in their campaign ads.

Even Sen. John Cornyn and his most prominent challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, have invoked fear of Muslims in their campaign ads.

Perhaps, on some level, this lowest-common-denominator approach is not surprising. The Republican Party’s standard-bearer, President Donald Trump, is the peddler-in-chief of conspiracy theories and anti-Muslim rhetoric. Immediately upon taking office in 2017, Trump imposed a travel ban from several majority-Muslim countries. He regularly disparages a Muslim congresswoman and attacks the religion of nearly two billion people as incompatible with the West.

To be clear, there are no jurisdictions in Texas — or elsewhere in the United States — where Sharia law is imposed as civil law. Nor have credible experts pointed to anything resembling an organized effort by Muslim Americans to impose such. Yet hate and fearmongering in some GOP races is having an effect.

A January Rasmussen Reports survey found that a staggering 77% of likely voters say they are concerned about the influence of “radical Islam” in the U.S. Of those, 41% say they are very concerned. Only 18% say they are not concerned.

Congress actually has a Sharia-Free America Caucus with more than two dozen members, spearheaded by Texas Republicans Chip Roy and Keith Self. Roy’s declaration that Sharia law is a “direct threat to the Constitution” and that Western civilization must be protected from it isn’t grounded in any evidence.

Along with allies such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. — who has said of radical Islam that “the enemy is now inside the gates” — this caucus embraces language and imagery straight out of the post-9/11 playbook: An external culture is threatening our American way of life.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has moved beyond rhetoric. In November, he declared the country’s leading Muslim advocacy organization — the Council on American Islamic relations (CAIR) — a terrorist organization. Such a designation has real consequences on the organization’s ability to offer services to the 300,000 Muslims in the Lone Star State.

Many Muslims in Texas — a fast-growing segment of the state’s non-white population — are becoming wary of how they are seen by neighbors, co-workers and even law enforcement.

This month, a man in Plano disrupted a student group’s prayer services insulting and harassing worshippers. A project to build a thousand homes around a mosque north of Dallas has drawn legal challenges and anti-Muslim criticism from several local and state officials.

This is what the lived experience of a faith community becomes when politicians paint people as threats or otherwise less than human.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., drew national attention recently over a social media post in which he wrote that if forced to choose, “The choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

Civil rights groups and prominent Democrats reacted swiftly, calling his remarks Islamophobic, bigoted and deeply damaging to the fabric of American pluralism. Some urged censureremoval from committee assignments or even resignation.

No other religion in America is denigrated so openly by politicians, officials and leaders at every level of society. That must stop.

Equally telling — and far more troubling — was the silence from most GOP leaders. Days after Fine’s comments went viral, House Speaker Mike Johnson was among those who had not publicly condemned or distanced themselves from fellow Republicans’ rhetoric. That absence of rebuke speaks volumes about what has become acceptable in parts of the GOP coalition — not just in one statehouse but nationally.

No other religion in America is denigrated so openly by politicians, officials and leaders at every level of society. That must stop.

This moment should trouble us all. Fear has always been a potent force in politics, but when it is stoked against whole communities on the basis of religion, it betrays a core promise of this country: that no American should be viewed as suspect because of their faith.

Remaining silent in the face of this Republican strategy — ignoring when dog whistles become full-throated campaigns, or when officials dehumanize Americans because of their faith — risks far more than ugly headlines. We risk erosion of the idea that the U.S. is a pluralistic democracy grounded in dignity and equal rights for all.

That’s not just bad politics. It’s bad for America.

Ayman Mohyeldin is a host of “‘The Weekend: Primetime” and an MS NOW political analyst.

The Dictatorship

The Latest: US hits pro-government demonstration in Iran as war threatens global economy

Published

13 hours ago

March 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Latest: US hits pro-government demonstration in Iran as war threatens global economy

The Dictatorship

Suspect in Temple Israel attack lost family in Israeli airstrikes

Published

23 hours ago

March 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Suspect in Temple Israel attack lost family in Israeli airstrikes

Mar. 13, 2026, 6:23 PM EDT

The suspect in an attack at a synagogue near Detroit lost several family members in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon this month, according to the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn and community leaders.

Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a 41-year-old U.S. citizen originally from Lebanon, lost his two brothers and a niece and nephew in the strike on their home, according to those sources. Whether that played a role in the motive for the attack remains unclear, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer deferred a question about it to the FBI on Friday, citing an ongoing investigation.

Authorities are looking at the possibility Ghazali may have had familial ties to Hezbollah in Lebanon, two law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation told MS NOW.

Ghazali died in the Thursday attack, in which authorities say he drove a car into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, injuring a security officer. Ghazali was a resident of Dearborn Heights, Mayor Mo Baydoun said in a Facebook post. Baydoun also said in that post that Ghazali “lost several members of his own family, including his niece and nephew, in an Israeli attack on their home in Lebanon” this month.

The Thursday attack in Michigan came as the U.S. and Israel wage a war with Iranwhich they launched on Feb. 28. Security around Jewish communities in places such as New York has been heightened since the conflict began.

Ghazali first came to the U.S. in 2011 on a spousal visa before being granted citizenship in 2016, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said.

In a phone interview with Fox host Brian Kilmeade, President Donald Trump appeared to blame former President Joe Biden for Ghazali’s entry into the country when asked about the Michigan attack and the deadly shooting at Old Dominion University in Michigan.

“They came in a lot through Biden, and they came in through other presidents, frankly, and it’s a disgrace,” Trump said.

Temple Israel describes itself as the country’s largest Jewish Reform congregation, and it also has an early childhood education center on site that more than 100 kids attend, Whitmer said. All children were safely evacuated following the attack, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.

“This is targeting babies who are Jewish,” Whitmer said. “That’s antisemitism at its absolute worst.”

The security guard who was injured was hospitalized but is expected to recover.

Whitmer on Friday thanked the synagogue’s security personnel, who she said “were selfless in their courage and they saved lives.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., added that if the synagogue’s private security, local law enforcement and first responders “had not all done their jobs almost perfectly, we would be talking about an immense tragedy here today with children gone.”

Andrew Bossone and Chris O’Leary contributed to this report.

Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.

Marc Santia is an investigative correspondent for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Missile strikes a helipad inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, Iraqi security officials say

Published

24 hours ago

March 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Missile strikes a helipad inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, Iraqi security officials say

Mar. 14, 2026, 12:25 AM EDT

BAGHDAD (AP) — A missile struck a helipad inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, two Iraqi security officials said.

Associated Press footage showed a column of smoke rising Saturday morning over the embassy compound.

The sprawling embassy complex, one of the largest U.S. diplomatic facilities in the world, has been repeatedly targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. On Friday, the embassy renewed its Level 4 security alert for Iraq, warning that Iran and Iran-aligned militia groups have previously carried out attacks against U.S. citizens, interests and infrastructure, and “may continue to target them.”