It was jarring on Thursday to hear NPR Morning Edition anchor A Martinez open an hour of the “newscast” warning about anti-Muslim “lies” from Republicans.
Muslim co-anchor Leila Fadel began their story:
FADEL: Over the last few months, anti-Muslim rhetoric has found a solid foothold in GOP messaging. Muslims, who make up about 1% of the population, are being made into a bogeyman in many of these political ads.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #1: Radical Islam is taking root in Texas.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #2: Radical Islam is incompatible with the West.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #3: They don't think we deserve the right to exist as Americans or as Christians.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #4: Hate our way of life. They want Sharia law.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #5: Oklahoma is next.
FADEL: And this bigotry has been met with virtually no condemnation from Republicans.
So on our formerly taxpayer-funded airwaves, it’s automatically “bigotry” to argue radical Islam is incompatible with Western democracy and religious liberty. In which Muslim-dominated country is their tolerance and liberty for other religions?
Fadel turned to NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt:
Screencap of NPR logoFADEL: So you've spent a lot of time looking at campaign ads for Republicans around the country who've been using anti-Muslim rhetoric. What stands out to you?
SPRUNT: I mean, it's striking to me how explicit those ads are. They basically are saying radical Islam is infiltrating our communities -- our way of life is at stake. They traffic in really ugly language. And experts on political speech say that that language can lead to real harm, real threats…. And people who track this type of hateful language have found that after both of those elections, anti-Muslim speech skyrocketed among Republican politicians.
Sprunt noted the political victories of Zohran Mamdani and Abdul el-Sayed, but there was no mention of radical Muslims like Hasan Piker. Sprunt attached criticism of radical Islam to a “great replacement theory,” which led to “deadly attacks of various minority communities.” Fadel agreed it was “dangerous,” but asked if it works.
There was no actual pushback on the "ugly bigotry" attacks. The only Republican soundbite came from GOP consultant Vinny Minchillo, who cynically offered this messaging is designed to distract people from the economy: “gee, if we can have a problem to talk about that's not economy and inflation, we're excited to put that in the message set.”
But Sprunt followed up that “a lot of American voters who aren't Muslim are just as disturbed and offended by this hate speech.”
It turns out this is Sprunt’s second story pushing this “hate speech” angle. A longer story appeared on September 10, and Minchillo was also the only GOP view allowed then, the same cynical soundbite about distraction. It appears the new one’s a shorter rerun of the older one.
PS: A search of NPR.org for recent articles on Muslims drew promotional headlines like this:
The rising power of American Muslims (It's a "new era"!)
American Muslims are giving Texas barbecue a halal makeover
What do a bar and a Muslim community organization have in common? (hatred of ICE)
