All posts tagged: vitriol

Could GOP’s anti-Muslim vitriol really get worse? It did

Could GOP’s anti-Muslim vitriol really get worse? It did

During Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims around the world fast from dawn to sunset and gather with family and neighbors each evening to break that fast, the American right is manufacturing outrage about Muslims in public life. Worse yet, they are turning it into a vehicle for increasingly explicit calls to push Muslims out of American society altogether.  What should have been a straightforward story about an anti-Muslim rally escalating into violence instead became a right-wing media opportunity to cast New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and by extension all Muslims, as the villain. Saturday’s protest outside Gracie Mansion, the city’s mayoral residence, was explicitly billed as a demonstration against the supposed “Islamic takeover of New York City.” Organized by Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 insurrectionist who promised to burn a Quran, the event attracted counter-protesters. Amid the chaos, two men allegedly hurled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) filled with bolts and screws into the crowd of anti-Muslim protesters.  The IEDs failed to detonate, but federal prosecutor Jay Clayton described the suspects as …