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Tennessee Republican Andy Ogles kicked off their annual Trump bootlicking event, also known as the House retreat, with an absolutely disgusting statement of near-genocidal racism against Muslim-Americans.
Mike Johnson and the greater media’s response to it at large is just another reminder of how deeply anti-Islamic hate is hardwired into the national consciousness – and how the Republican Party has been taken over entirely by unrepentant bigots solidly somewhere between “Klansmen” and “Nazi” on the racism scale.
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On March 9th, Rep. Andy Ogles tweeted, “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluarlism [sic] is a lie,” prompting furious backlash from everyone…except his own party.
This kind of white supremacist rhetoric stems directly from neo-Nazi ideas and conspiracy theories and is the language of ethnic cleansing at its core. It is the sort of rhetoric that eventually leads to genocide if allowed to be assimilated into mainstream discourse, tearing apart the bonds of community that so many Muslim-Americans share with their countrymen and dehumanizing them into the Other.
It is absolutely unacceptable…to everyone *except* MAGA Republicans.
Chip in to elect Democrat Chaz Molder and kick Andy Ogles out of Congress! [ [link removed] ]
It didn’t always used to be like this; Rep. Steve King was stripped of his committee assignments and was ostracized for sharing similar sentiments just seven years ago. But in today’s Republican Party, this kind of talk is not only tolerated and shared by many members of the GOP caucus, but their leader will even *defend* it by invoking white supremacist conspiracy theories.
Olivia Beavers of the Wall Street Journal challenged Speaker Mike Johnson on Ogles’ repulsive comments, and he responded by going on a nonsensical tirade about “sharia law.”
“Look, there’s a lot of energy in the country and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem. That’s what animates this. ah that’s the language that people use. It’s different language than I would use. But I think that’s a serious issue.”
“But when you impose, when you seek to come to a country and not assimilate, but to impose Sharia law, Sharia law is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution, that is the conflict that people are talking about. It is not about people as Muslims. It’s about those who seek to impose a different belief system that is in direct conflict with the Constitution. That’s where I think that comes from.”
This is complete and utter nonsense. The “sharia law” hysteria is entirely imaginary, a boogeyman concocted by racist right-wing media to terrify brain-rotted boomers and keep them glued to their televisions.
The only thing that’s in direct conflict with the Constitution is Andy Ogles’ comments; the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom for all Americans, something that Republicans pretend they care very deeply about.
Muslims are and have always been a very important part of American society; we should remind Ogles and Johnson that the Founding Fathers respected the Prophet Muhammad and valued his legal ideas so much that they depicted him on the wall at the Supreme Court, in a well-intentioned if inadvertently offensive display of tolerance.
It just goes to show how alienated the anti-intellectual, anti-history, anti-human decency MAGA Republican Party is from what America actually is, what it was, what its founders believed, and what makes it actually great.
Unfortunately, there’s no cure for being a bigot; all we can do is make it clear that normal society will not tolerate this kind of racism and then kick every one of these assholes out of power once and for all.
Donate to elect Democrat Chaz Molder and kick Andy Ogles out of Congress! [ [link removed] ]
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