A version of this article can be found on Substack.
In two
days, Americans will go to the polls in one of the most consequential midterm
elections in recent memory.
Much of
the public debate has centred on inflation, immigration, crime, foreign policy,
economic uncertainty, and the balance of power in Washington. Political parties
are competing for control of Congress, candidates are making their final
appeals to voters, and commentators are focused on who will emerge victorious
when the ballots are counted. Yet beneath these familiar political battles lies
a more fundamental question, one that extends far beyond the outcome of any
individual election: what kind of political culture is America becoming?
Elections
do more than determine who holds office. They serve as moral and cultural
barometers, revealing not only who citizens choose to govern them but also the
values, fears, and prejudices they are willing to embrace. When politicians
learn that appeals to fear and hostility bring political rewards rather than
penalties, such rhetoric rarely remains confined to the campaign trail. It
becomes embedded in public discourse, steadily shifting intolerance from the
margins into the mainstream.
If this
election cycle is any indication, anti-Muslim prejudice and Islamophobia have
moved far beyond the American political fringe and become increasingly
normalized within mainstream American politics. What was once considered
outside the boundaries of respectable public discourse is now routinely
deployed against Muslim candidates seeking public office. This pattern has
emerged during both primary contests, where Muslim candidates compete against
members of their own party, and general election campaigns, where Republican
candidates and their allies have frequently targeted Muslim Democrats through
rhetoric rooted in suspicion, fear, and religious prejudice. Rather than
debating policies or qualifications, critics have often sought to portray
Muslim candidates as inherently suspect because of their faith and identity.
The
significance of this trend extends beyond any individual election or candidate.
It reflects a broader shift in American political culture, one in which
demonizing and dehumanizing members of a minority religious community has
become increasingly socially acceptable and politically advantageous. The
United States has reached a troubling moment with respect to Muslims, much as
Germany reached such a moment with respect to Jews during the years that
preceded Nazi rule.
While the
US is not Nazi Germany history offers warnings. One of the most important is
that mass violence rarely begins with violence itself. It begins with
dehumanizing rhetoric, racist stereotypes, conspiracy theories, and the
repeated portrayal of a group as inherently suspect, dangerous, disloyal,
foreign, or incapable of truly belonging to the nation. Before persecution
becomes policy, prejudice must first become normalized. Before discrimination
becomes law, fear and suspicion must become politically acceptable. History
shows that this process often begins with words long before it escalates into
actions.
That is
precisely what happened to Jews in Germany during the 1930s, and it is
increasingly what is happening to Muslims in America today.
The framing
of the current political climate in the US does not mean that Muslims occupy
the same historical position at this time as Jews did in 1930s Germany. The
comparison is that the political mechanisms are disturbingly familiar. Jews
were accused of dual loyalty, of undermining the nation from within, of being
responsible for society's problems, and of representing a hidden threat to the
German people. Muslims today are routinely accused of sympathizing with
terrorism, supporting foreign enemies, seeking to impose “Sharia law,” or
secretly undermining Western society from within.
What
makes this especially dangerous is that these accusations are no longer
confined to fringe groups. They increasingly originate from elected officials,
candidates for office, major media personalities, and influential political
activists. When those with power endorse prejudice, prejudice acquires
legitimacy. It stops being a social taboo and becomes an acceptable part of
public discourse.
Twenty-five
years after September 11, a remarkable paradox exists. Muslim Americans are
among the most visible, educated, and politically engaged Muslim populations in
the Western world, the same way that Jews were in Germany before the rise of
the Nazis. They are doctors, lawyers, academics, teachers, journalists,
engineers, police officers, military veterans, entrepreneurs, and elected
officials. Yet despite these contributions, suspicion directed toward Muslims has
become deeply embedded in American political culture.
A 2026
Pew Research Center report found that 43% of Americans believe Muslims are
less patriotic than other Americans, while 42% believe Muslims have a negative
impact on the country. Those numbers
should alarm every defender of democracy.
Imagine
the reaction if nearly half of Americans believed Jews, Catholics, Black
Americans, or any other religious or ethnic minority were fundamentally less
loyal to the US than their fellow citizens. Such attitudes would rightly be
condemned as prejudice. Yet when these sentiments concern Muslims, they frequently
receive far less condemnation.
This
normalization did not emerge overnight. The modern
era of American Islamophobia began after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
In the weeks and months that followed, Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim
faced harassment, workplace discrimination, threats, physical assaults, and
vandalism. Sikh Americans were attacked because assailants ignorantly assumed
that they were Muslim. Mosques required additional security. Entire communities
found themselves under suspicion because of crimes they neither committed nor supported.
Yet there
was an important difference between then and now. In the immediate aftermath of
the attacks, many political leaders still recognized the danger of collective
blame. President George W. Bush visited a mosque and publicly declared that
Islam was a religion of peace, and that scapegoating
all Muslims for the actions of a handful of terrorists betrayed American values.
Senator
John McCain similarly rejected attempts to portray ordinary Muslim citizens
as threats to the nation.
Today,
many of those restraints have weakened. The racist and bigoted rhetoric directed
at Muslims by politicians has become more explicit, more normalized, and more
politically useful. Perhaps nowhere is this more visible than in campaigns
involving Muslim candidates for public office.
The rise
of Zohran Mamdani illustrates the problem. During his campaign and subsequent
election as mayor of New York City, Mamdani became
the target of a torrent of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Critics invoked 9/11
imagery, questioned his loyalty, suggested that his faith made him unfit for
public office, and portrayed his election as a threat to American values. The
Council on American-Islamic Relations documented dramatic spikes in anti-Muslim
hostility after his political breakthrough. Thousands of hostile social media
posts appeared as violent threats increased. Some critics openly suggested that
New
Yorkers had effectively voted for another September 11th attack itself.
The same
pattern has emerged in Michigan’s senate race with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. Again
and again, critics have sought to tie him to terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood,
or foreign extremism, even though he was born and raised in Michigan. Evidence
was secondary. The goal was not necessarily to prove wrongdoing, but to create
suspicion and fear, and make facts irrelevant where his campaign was concerned.
This
strategy should sound familiar to students of history. Minority populations are
frequently excluded not through evidence but through insinuation. The
accusation does not need to be proven. It only needs to be repeated. That was
true for Jews in much of Europe before the Holocaust. They were accused of
financial conspiracy, political subversion, disloyalty, and secret influence.
These accusations were often wildly irrational, yet they shaped public opinion
because they were repeated relentlessly by politicians, newspapers, and public
figures.
Today's
anti-Muslim rhetoric in the US functions in a similar manner. The Muslim
candidate is transformed from an ordinary citizen with political views into a
symbol of a broader perceived threat to society. He becomes a vessel onto which
public anxieties are projected.
The Islamophobia
and the Political Rise of Zohran Mamdani report produced by Georgetown
University's Bridge Initiative documented how familiar anti-Muslim stereotypes
were mobilized against Mamdani. His Muslim identity was framed through tropes
portraying Muslims as dangerous, foreign, disloyal, and fundamentally incompatible
with Western society. Even criticism of Israeli government policies is
increasingly used to portray politically active Muslims as inherently extremist
or antisemitic. Rather than engaging with specific policy arguments, critics
often seek to disqualify Muslims from participation in public life altogether.
What is
perhaps most alarming is the degree to which these attacks are now conducted
openly and unapologetically. In earlier eras of American politics, overt
religious prejudice was widely recognized as disreputable and often carried
significant political consequences. Politicians therefore tended to disguise
such sentiments or avoid expressing them publicly. Today, however, anti-Muslim
rhetoric has become both more common and more extreme. The racist and bigoted
narratives targeting Muslims are no longer confined to the political fringe.
Instead they increasingly circulate through mainstream political discourse with
little fear of consequence.
Several
elected officials have publicly declared that Muslims do not belong in American
society, suggested restrictions on Muslim immigration because of religion, or argued
that fear of Islam is rational rather than prejudicial.[11] Others have
shared social media posts placing images of Muslim politicians beside pictures
of the September 11 attacks or describing Muslim public officials as enemies within
American institutions. Such statements would likely end political careers if
directed at virtually any other religious group. Yet when they are directed at
Muslims, the consequences are often minimal. The significance of this
development cannot be overstated.
Political
rhetoric of this sort functions as social permission. When leaders repeatedly
characterize a religious minority as dangerous or alien, they communicate that
hostility and violence toward that group is acceptable, as was the case when
Jews were targeted in Nazi Germany. Citizens receive the message that prejudice
is not only tolerated but justified, and that violence against the group will
be tolerated.
Researchers
have repeatedly warned about the relationship between inflammatory rhetoric and
real-world violence, with considerable amounts of academic research coming to
the conclusion that spikes in
anti-Muslim rhetoric during the 2015-2016 presidential campaign coincided
with increases in harassment, threats, vandalism, and violence directed against
Muslims and Islamic institutions.
History
offers numerous examples of this pattern. Before discrimination becomes law, it
is normalized through speech, and rationalized through stereotypes. Before a
minority becomes a target, public figures teach society to view that minority
with suspicion. Political rhetoric does not automatically lead to violence, but
it creates the environment in which violence becomes easier to justify. This is
one reason comparisons with 1930s Germany deserve careful consideration.
The most
important lesson from that period is not what happened after authoritarian
power was consolidated. It is what happened before. Long before concentration
camps, long before deportations, long before genocide, there were years of
speeches, media campaigns, conspiracy theories, and political movements
portraying Jews as a dangerous problem that had to be addressed. The
normalization of prejudice preceded the implementation of violent persecution.
Democratic
societies often fail to recognize danger because they focus only on the final
outcome rather than the warning signs that precede it. Many Muslim Americans
believe they are witnessing those warning signs today.
Again,
the issue is not disagreement. Political disagreement is essential in a
democracy. The issue is collective suspicion. A democracy cannot function when
religious minorities are treated as threats and enemies, as guilty until proven
innocent. And evidence suggests the
climate is worsening rather than improving.
Muslims
have endured decades of profiling, surveillance, employment discrimination,
threats, hate crimes, and political hostility. Anti-Muslim hate crimes remain
substantially higher than they were after 9/11. Yet the tragedy is that this
hostility is directed at a community that has been part of the American story
for centuries. Muslims were present in America before the founding of the
republic, including among the enslaved Africans brought to its shores, and have
helped build the nation alongside their fellow citizens ever since.
Over the
centuries, Muslims have served in public office and the armed forces, taught in
universities, worked in hospitals, operated businesses, raised families, paid
taxes, and volunteered in their communities. Like other Americans, they mourned
the victims of 9/11 and shared in the nation's grief. Yet for many, that
tragedy also marked the beginning of an era in which they became objects of
suspicion because of their faith.
What too
many political leaders learned from 9/11 was not the importance of solidarity
but the political utility of fear. It became a resource to be exploited for
political gain, and Muslims became convenient targets onto whom broader social
and political frustrations could be projected. More than two decades later,
that dynamic continues to shape American political discourse, including during
the current election cycle, as candidates and commentators continue to invoke
anti-Muslim narratives for political advantage.
The United
States therefore faces a choice. It can continue down a path in which Muslims
serve as convenient scapegoats for social anxieties and political grievances,
or it can reaffirm a principle that should never require defending in the first
place: that citizenship is not determined by religion and that equal rights do
not depend on a person’s faith. That choice matters not only for Muslims but
for America itself. Whether Americans choose to recognize these warning signs
may help determine whether the country strengthens its democratic ideals or
continues eroding them, a decision whose consequences will extend far beyond
the Muslim community.
© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
