The Dictatorship
Texas Republicans have a new campaign strategy — and a surprisingly retro boogeyman
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 servicesinsulting 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.
Ayman Mohyeldin is a host of “‘The Weekend: Primetime” and an MS NOW political analyst.
BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, sided with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the Republican president’s order in granting a summary judgment. Her ruling applies to this year’s midterm election cycle.
Plaintiffs argued in two lawsuitsboth filed in federal court in Boston, that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. The judge agreed, saying in her ruling that the provisions of Trump’s order seeking to create a federal list of eligible voters and using the U.S. Postal Service to determine who can receive a mail ballot are “legally void” because they “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”
It was the second ruling in as many days against executive orders Trump has signed seeking oversight of the nation’s elections. A separate ruling Wednesday prohibited an executive order he had signed last year that would have required people to show documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote.
Order targeted mail voting, administration likely to appeal
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose state was among the plaintiffs, celebrated the court’s decision.
“Millions of independents, Republicans and Democrats across Arizona have voted by mail for decades,” she said in a statement, noting that nearly 80% of ballots in the state are cast by that method.
Mayes, a Democrat, singled out military families, voters in the state’s rural expanses and Native Americans who cast ballots from tribal lands.
“Donald Trump’s executive order targeted all of these voters,” she said. “But today, the courts affirmed what the Constitution makes clear: States run their elections, not the President.”
AP AUDIO: Federal judge halts Trump’s election executive order seeking to create a federal voter list
AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports President Trump has suffered a legal setback for a second straight day in his bid to get oversight of the nation’s elections.
The White House stood by Trump’s executive order and indicated the administration would appeal the ruling. The order, said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, “lawfully protects our elections, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in its implementation.”
The administration, in its motions to dismiss the lawsuits challenging the order, argued that the motions were premature and that plaintiffs lacked the legal basis to bring their claim based on the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
But in an interim order before Thursday’s ruling, Talwani said the motions pertaining to this year’s election cycle were relevant: “In light of the EO’s specific deadlines over the next three months, and the reality that elections will be occurring throughout this period with the November 3, 2026 midterm occurring in just five months, postponing judicial review is impracticable and may inflict significant hardship on Plaintiffs,” she wrote. That order denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the challenges.
Executive order sought to give Postal Service a central role in elections
Trump’s executive order, the second one aimed at elections during his second term, comes as he continues to raise the specter of widespread voting by noncitizens as a reason to change election rules. But states already have detailed processes aimed at keeping their voter rolls accurate, and voting by noncitizens has been shown to be rare. It also is a felony that can be punishable by deportation.
Trump issued his second order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government — through the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration — create a “state citizenship list” of eligible voters. It then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list.
Election officials argued that it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.
The Postal Service has published a proposed rule required by Trump’s executive order in the Federal Register. Among other things, the rule would not apply to primary elections or overseas ballots.
Postal Service workers have pushed back against the order, saying they are not equipped to determine who is eligible to vote in each state. After Trump issued his order last spring, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association said forcing its members into such a role “risks politicizing one of the nation’s most trusted public institutions.”
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat whose state was among the plaintiffs, said the executive order illustrated how Trump was attempting to “abuse power in previously unthinkable ways” to interfere in elections.
She said it “strains credulity” to think the U.S. Postal Service could set up a workable system for pre-screening individual voters to determine whether they would be allowed to vote by mail, adding that it would be “a shocking violation of American constitutional rights.”
The Postal Service did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment.
Trump’s second election executive order faces multiple legal challenges
The lawsuit seeking summary judgment was filed by Democratic attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia. Also signing on were attorneys representing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, which has a Republican attorney general.
The states also told the court that the move imposes a costly burden on election officials to comply and would spread fear about the possibility of prosecution. Stephen Pezzi, a lawyer for the Trump administration, had argued that no one would be prosecuted for violating the order.
The other lawsuit filed in Talwani’s court was by the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups, which have sought a preliminary injunction against the executive order.
In yet another lawsuit filed against the executive order, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in May agreed with the Trump administration that it was too early to block the order because it had yet to be implemented. That lawsuit was brought by Democratic and civil rights groups, which have appealed.
Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe BidenTrump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigationsincluding ones run by Republicansfound it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.
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Barrow reported from Atlanta and Hanna from Topeka, Kansas.
California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced Thursday it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it.
The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system after federal cuts.
“I am all in on this,” union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are “totally out of touch.”
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor.
A coalition of healthcare, education and housing groups — including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association — banded together last week to fight the tax.
“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a statement.
Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said it would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”
“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” he said in a statement.
Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Many of the Silicon Valley tech moguls who oppose the measure have already moved their assets to other states or threatened to do so to avoid the possible tax. They have also spent millions to try to defeat it.
Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.
California relies on its top 1% of earnersfor nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.
The union offered to scale back its proposal last week, asking Newsom to back a 2% tax on billionaires instead. But the governor’s office said the lower rate didn’t change his stance.
The proposed tax may have piqued the interest of many Democrats because it comes at a time when they are particularly concerned about affordability, income inequality and federal cutbacks to government programs, said Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” he said.
But there’s a catch. Support for ballot initiatives often declines as the election nears, and if the measure passes, it’s likely to face legal challenges, Gilens said.
Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.
What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as “chaotic” amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.
One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.
In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there “true professionals and American patriots” after he said he spent time with them, adding “it is a privilege to work beside them.”
And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was “National Typewriter Day” and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.
“Fun CI fact,” the post reads. “Former Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed ‘The Typewriter’ on October 9, 1950.”
But Pulte’s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office’s workforce, three former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW, granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic.
They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte’s plans.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.
“I’ve been calling over there all day and can’t get my calls returned,” said Himes.
He later said, “I spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.”
“It seems like it’s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. “There was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don’t know.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.
“Everyone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,” he said. “That said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.”
The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI’s mission is to ensure that the country’s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.
But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.
“As with many things Trump alights upon, there is a sliver of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW, granted anonymity over concerns of retaliation. “But mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.”
That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte’s mission is to use his position as the nation’s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.
Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration’s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte’s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.
One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.
One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November — as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump’s behest — as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.
“I have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,” Warner told NPR earlier this month. “The concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
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