The Movement: ‘Islamification’ fears drive appeals to conservative base

A note for Movement readers: Movement is becoming part of The Hill Insider — our new premium access digital subscription launching July 2026. As a Hill Insider subscriber your weekly briefing on politics and policy continues, now with live editor calls, exclusive analysis and a direct line to the reporters covering the forces shaping Washington. Readers on the waitlist lock in early access and our launch rate before July 1. Join the waitlist →

Republican fear about the “Islamification of America” is poised to be a lasting focus of advocacy aimed at energizing the right-wing base, as the topic has gained steam among Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail this year — often veering into anti-Muslim rhetoric.

A Sharia-Free America Caucus launched this year has more than 60 members, including the No. 3 House Republican, Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.). Several Republicans have bills to ban immigration for those who adhere to Sharia Law or are from majority Muslim countries, and a proposed development of an Islamic community in Texas was a major focus of the Republican Senate primary in the state.

GOP lawmakers’ focus on the issue stood out to me as I was reporting on the future of the House Freedom Caucus and the issues that will define the group in the near future.

Both Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), who is expected to be one of the most prominent voices in the group next year, and Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), the newest Freedom Caucus member, told me that a major focus of the group will be combatting the “Islamification of America” and Sharia Law. That was somewhat surprising to me as someone who had seen the Freedom Caucus as largely focused on the legislative process and fiscal issues.

Fine said it “has been remarkably underreported how concerned base Republican voters are” about the issue and recalled it being a dominant concern at a recent town hall in The Villages retirement community in Florida with Eric Bolling, a host for the conservative outlet Real America’s Voice. 

“He surveyed this crowd of Republican primary voters on what their number one issue was, and he was stunned when it was overwhelmingly the ‘Islamification of America,’” Fine said. “And by the way, The Villages is not a place that is going through Islamification. There aren’t any mosques, I don’t think, in The Villages. But that was the issue that people were super worried about.”

The issue doesn’t show up in polls, Fine said, because such lists measuring top voter concerns are often pre-populated with different topics.

“We’ve got to attack this Sharia onslaught across America,” Self said, listing it as one of the “most important issues in our nation today.”

There’s certainly been an undercurrent of fears about radical Islam in the 25 years since 9/11, and in the wake of terror attacks that have happened since. President Trump made it a prominent topic in his 2016 race and after he banned immigration from several majority-Muslim countries once he was elected.

After simmering for years, though, discussion of radical Islam is ramping back up now. According to Google Trends, interest in “Sharia Law” has peaked over the last six months or so up to where it was a decade ago.

Republicans are responding to that. In Texas, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) had one prominent ad asserting that “Sharia Law has no place in American courts or........

© The Hill