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Combating the Nativist Narrative – Weekly Summary Week of May 1, 2023

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Week of May 1, 2023

THREE OPPOSITION MESSAGES FROM THE WEEK

  • H.R. 2 – dressing up nativist fundraising as legislation: After over 12 congressional hearings, consolidating multiple bills, and tens of millions spent on political promises, the House majority dropped their plan for the border, and they have again confirmed they are only interested in fundraising off demagoguing over migrants who are trapped in a broken system. Their bill H.R. 2, is cruel, extreme, and devoid of any real solutions to deal with the challenges along the border. It’s the kind of anti-immigrant extremism that makes Stephen Miller giddy and receives vocal support from a hate group. The GOP bill would gut asylum, increase child and family detention, and create show-me-your-papers in the midst of disaster relief. It’s not where the American people are at on the issue. Instead, its purpose is to continue the long con Republicans are pulling on their own base. H.R.2 provides a cheap performance of doing the actual work of governing while prolonging the chaos that takes center stage in right-wing political ads and fundraising emails. In short, H.R. 2 is about driving clicks to the donate button and ensuring those clicks don’t stop any time soon. 
  • Barely contained glee over the end of Title 42: Taking them at their word (an unadvisable position if you prefer factual reality), the right-wing believes the ending of Title 42 is an existential urgent threat that must be avoided at all costs. Those serious about this position do so out of the racist conspiratorial fear that non-white migrants will replace “real Americans.” But whether they are true believers in white nationalist conspiracies or just cynical opportunists, just below the surface is a barely contained giddiness about the images of increased numbers of migrants seeking asylum as a direct result of the bottleneck created by Title 42. A video Senate Republicans dropped this week typifies what they hopefully anticipate will be the next chapter of their nativist narrative, “crisis to catastrophe.” #BidensBorderCatastrophe might make its way to a future Republican strategy memo if it wasn’t so hard to spell. Regardless, any of the performed outrage from the right-wing over Title 42 may have been slightly less farcical if the policy didn’t have a nearly four-year track record of failure or if they had a serious policy alternative on the table. Unfortunately, the American people are only presented with the farce, not solutions.   
  • Dehumanizing, crass, political opportunism. After yet another horrific shooting that left a family, including an eight-year-old boy, dead, in Cleveland, Texas, the Republicans’ responses revealed the sickening casual dehumanization festering inside the party. In the wake of such a horrible act, the immigration status of those involved should be of very little concern in the immediate aftermath. However, well beyond Texas Governor Greg Abbott, that is all the right-wing wanted to talk about, including some truly gross responses. Will Bunch from the Philadelphia Inquirer captured the depravity: “Why Texas Gov. Greg Abbott all but spit on the graves of five victims of an AR-15 killing spree.” Exploiting an individual crime to demonize all immigrant communities is, unfortunately, not a new political tactic for the right-wing, but is getting worse with the dehumanization of our undocumented neighbors dangerously appearing as text more than subtext.      

 ELECTORAL UPDATES 

  • President: In a rambling three and half minute video released this week, Trump continues to remind us that his white nationalist-laden nativism is still a top messaging priority for his campaign. In the video, Trump warns of “mass resettlement of millions and millions and millions of illegal aliens into your communities.  And the invasion will be aided, abetted, and facilitated by the Biden administration every step of the way.” In addition, Rolling Stone is reporting that Trump wants to reinstate and expand his so-called “Muslim Ban.”
  • NV-Sen: Jim Marchant was the ringleader of the election deniers in the ‘22 midterm cycle when he ran and lost a bid for the Secretary of State office. Now, he is looking for the Republican nomination for Senate. A promoter of QAnon conspiracies, Marchant also falsely claimed undocumented immigrants were registering to vote and that all NV electeds since 2006 were “installed by the deep-state cabal.” American Independent reported Marchant “held his campaign kickoff at an anti-LGBTQ+ church in Las Vegas with featured speakers that included prominent QAnon conspiracy theorist Michael Flynn and white nationalist Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ).
  • NC-AG: Rep. Dan Bishop (NC-09) announced he would be running for Attorney General this week, looking to add to a list of anti-immigrant zealots in such offices across the country. Bishop is a frequent promoter of the white nationalist great replacement conspiracy theory. While Republicans have only held the seat for a single year in the last century, Bishop is likely to spend a good amount of treasure demonizing immigrants as he seeks to buck the historical trend.

WEEKLY STATS OF NATIVIST NARRATIVE 

  • Of the 400 GOP Twitter accounts we track, this week, they sent: 
    • 293 original tweets peddling anti-immigrant attacks mentioning “border”
    • 35 original tweets about “open borders,” with Greg Abbott tweet having the most reach with 334.9K Views, 2,001 Retweets, and 7,246Likes.
    • 22 original tweets that used “Biden Border Crisis” with Ted Cruz tweet having the most reach with 151.2K Views, 1,324 Retweets, and 6,029 Likes.
    •  25 original tweets that mentioned both “fentanyl” and “border” with Byron Donalds tweet having the most reach with 33.3K views, 446 Retweets and 1,446 Likes.