Like Trump, Coulter gets away with it, in part, because she’s considered an entertainer: “Bold, brash, provocative, talented, fearless, witty, and outrageous,” in National Review’s words. But her massive success—fueled by massive media exposure—has shown other conservatives that bigotry sells. Mike Huckabee has gotten into the Islamophobia game in recent as years as well. In 2011, he said Christians shouldn’t rent space in their churches to Muslims because “Muslim group[s]” say “that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated.” In 2013, he called Islam “a religion that promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet in their so-called holiest days … Muslims will go to the mosque, and they will have their day of prayer, and they come out of there like uncorked animals—throwing rocks and burning cars.” In the years Huckabee made those comments, he hosted his own Fox show.
All this helps explain why Republicans, who disproportionately watch Fox and read Coulter, are so much more hostile to Muslims and Islam than Democrats. Last month, according to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, 43 percent of Democrats said Islam was incompatible with American culture, which is bad enough. But among Republicans, it was 76 percent. A September Public Policy Polling survey found that only 49 percent of Iowa Republicans believed Islam should be legal in the United States. (The rest thought it should be illegal or weren’t sure. The survey didn’t ask Democrats.) Among Trump supporters, the figure was 38 percent. Among Huckabee supporters, it was 28 percent.
When it comes to violent jihadism, conservatives are quick to say that it’s not enough to go after leaders. You must confront the culture from which they arise. It’s time they took their own advice. If the right wants to defeat Trump, and the Trumps who will almost certainly follow, it needs to draw a clear line between being a conservative and being a bigot, as William F. Buckley did decades ago when he expelled anti-Semites from his movement’s ranks. When Ann Coulter stops appearing on Fox, we’ll know that the right’s intellectual counterattack against Trumpism has truly begun.
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