Converging Bigotry: Nativist Movement Begins to Focus on Muslim Immigration
The present Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) debate, as political debates tend to do, has produced much ugliness from the organized nativist movement, both anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim alike. While both rail on separate-but-not-mutually-exclusive talking points, the anti-Muslim sphere has begun focusing more and more prevalently on the issue of immigration.
While hocking baseless, packaged fears regarding how religious and ethnic demographics come to distort our national character beyond recognition, the players that comprise this anti-Muslim sphere of nativism are revealing a primary motivation for their work: the preservation of “the native” over the welcoming of “the new.” Such inclinations are regularly assigned to groups within the established anti-immigrant movement, but less regularly to their counterpart.
It’s not uncommon for anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim leaders to cross-contaminate, with many of their collaborations existing as poorly kept secrets. Clearly, core sentiments about “outsiders” contribute to their mutual toxicity.
