Islamophobia resonates with Republican base
WASHINGTON— The party chairman. The Speaker of the House. The former vice-president. Top Republicans lined up late Monday and early Tuesday to join the worldwide chorus of condemnation over Donald Trump’s extraordinary and likely unconstitutional proposal to bar all Muslims from entering the U.S.
The response from these elites suggested a party united against the open Islamophobia of its presidential front-runner. The response from lower-level Republicans suggested something far different.
In interviews with the Star, Republican county leaders in three states defended a plan that had one Philadelphia newspaper likening Trump to Hitler. While others denounced Trump’s stand, the mixed reaction showed there is a substantial constituency for anti-Muslim hostility.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Robert Rabon, the Republican chairman in Horry County, S.C. “I went to two events today, and I talked to dozens of people, and I had one person disagree with Trump. Everybody else was all aboard, 100 per cent. At the first meeting, everybody was for it. They said, ‘What’s wrong? What does it hurt? A pause for a few weeks, a few months?’ ”
“Too many Republicans say, ‘Oh, no, we can’t do that.’ Well, why the hell not?” said Lowell McManus, the chairman in Maverick County, Texas. “This is our country’s defence we’re talking about. Our safety. That isn’t meant to be a statement of hatred towards anybody.”
Much of the Republican electorate is deeply suspicious of Muslims. In September polls of Republicans in Iowa and North Carolina, 30 per cent and 40 per cent said Islam should be illegal. In the American Values Survey released last month, 76 per cent of Republicans said Islam is at odds with the American way of life.
Republican fears have only intensified in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. Rabon said his community in the Myrtle Beach area is “scared to death.”
Harvey McNeal, the Republican chairman in Putnam County, Tenn., said Trump picked an ideal moment to strike. “Is it a little bold? Perhaps. But people are looking for security above all things right now. And when a presidential candidate makes a statement like that after what just happened in California, people are interested.”
Party bigwigs, though, were incensed. House Speaker Paul Ryan broke from his campaign neutrality to admonish Trump and offer an impassioned defence of Muslims. Famously hawkish Dick Cheney said the plan “goes against everything we stand for.”
The revulsion extended to some of the party grassroots. Randomly selected county leaders in New Hampshire, South Dakota and Nevada said they were aghast.
“Shocking,” said Michael Mears, the chairman in Eureka County, Nev. “I’m concerned that he’s tarnishing the Republican Party in our country. I’m 48 years old, I’ve been a Republican all my life. That’s not the country that I live in, nor the party that I’ve grown up supporting.”
The proposal was the rare campaign press release to become a major international incident. Egypt’s official religious body called Trump’s remarks “hate rhetoric.” U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron issued a firm denunciation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was comparatively cautious: “Canadians are very aware of my feelings on this. And they, by the way, sided pretty clearly against the politics of fear and division in our election here.”
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose took a harder line, calling the remarks “ridiculous.” NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair turned the tables on Trump, saying he should be barred from Canada for “spouting hatred.”
The firestorm allowed Trump to dominate media coverage once more. In interviews on at least four morning shows, he backtracked slightly: Muslim athletes would be exempted, he said, as would Muslim world leaders. But he did not abandon the incendiary basics, even when confronted with accusations of bigotry and fascism.
“You’re increasingly being compared to Hitler. Does that give you any pause at all?” ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked. “No,” Trump said. MSNBC’s Willie Geist asked whether customs agents would ask every visitor for their religion.
Trump said no to that, too. He said they would ask, “Are you Muslim?” With files from Bruce Campion-Smith