Checkpoint: Schrödinger's Muslim
Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Zohran Mamdani, and Abdul El-Sayed are four of the most prominent topics of Republican conversation right now. They have a lot in common, but the most significant similarities are that they’re 1. Progressive and 2. Muslim.
Both of these characteristics have made them targets for attacks of a contradictory nature. Conservatives have warned that they represent an insurgent far left that seeks to strip Americans of their hard-earned capital and force communism into the United States. Meanwhile, many conservatives, specifically white Christian nationalists, accuse Muslim politicians of harboring secret agendas to institute conservative Islamic legal codes, forcing women to cover their hair, banning alcohol, and other tenets of the so-called “Sharia Law.”
These conflicting accusations paint a rather confusing picture. Somehow, Muslim leftist politicians are both so progressive that they’re radical communists and also such religious conservatives that they plan to force Americans to adopt the most fundamentalist Islamic traditions. Of course, neither of these assumptions is accurate, and they’re employed to open progressive Muslim politicians up to attacks from multiple angles.
When Muslim progressives advocate for leftist policies that involve greater government intervention, such as Medicare for All, heavy taxation on the rich, and universal childcare, conservatives portray them as wanting to transform the United States into a moneyless, property-less society where everyone works on an Animal Farm-esque labor camp. On a theoretical level, communism is necessarily at odds with capitalism as it seeks to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Therefore, when politicians are accused of being communists, the framing is that progressives are enemies to our current capitalist state.
Representatives Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) and Ilhan Omar (MN-05) were both elected in 2018, and were the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Both are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which Omar is Deputy Chair and Tlaib is Vice Chair. They are two of the most outspoken progressive voices in Congress, and they represent the parts of the diverse left-leaning metro areas of Detroit and Minneapolis, respectively. From their elections in 2018 to the present, both have been the subject of allegations of communist leanings and of Islamophobic attacks. In 2020 Senator Lindsey Graham referred to them as “communists” who “hate our own country.” They’ve faced numerous similar allegations to incite fearmongering around socialist policies.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City and Democratic Senate Nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan have faced the same battery of communist allegations and Islamophobic remarks. During his 2025 mayoral run, Mamdani was called “a 100% Communist Lunatic” by President Trump, and other prominent conservatives like Elise Stefanik and Ben Shapiro took part in the communist fearmongering as well. Trump and other Republicans have targeted Abdul El-Sayed similarly, calling him “anti-American” and a communist.
Conservatives often employ the age-old tactic of anti-communist fearmongering, rooted in America’s long history of opposition to communism that reached its peak during the Red Scare of the 1950s. In a modern day context, rhetoric invoking the threat of communism remains politically expedient and is reinforced by the fact that United States’ ideological adversaries of the last few decades continue to be nations adhering, or claiming to adhere to communism— China, North Korea, Cuba. This has created a populace primed to reject progressive figures whose policies can easily be misconstrued by conservatives as evidence of communism creeping into our country.
Progressive Muslim politicians are also criticized for their religion, which is especially ironic coming from the First-Amendment/freedom-of-religion crowd. Republican members of Congress have voted to censure Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, alleging that they hold “anti-American” sentiments after they spoke out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the brutality of the police and criminal justice system during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Both have been repeatedly accused of terrorism and likened to suicide bombers, and in 2019 both were featured in an image circulated by a Republican organization Illinois depicting the “jihad squad,” a racist nickname coined by President Trump.
Both Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed have also been subject to Islamophobic attacks. Earlier this year, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AR) shared an image of Mamdani alongside the Twin Towers on 9/11 with text reading “The enemy is inside the gates.” Mamdani’s opposition also circulated an altered image of Mamdani with his beard visibility darkened and lengthened to draw on harmful anti-Muslim stereotypes. Likewise, after he won the primary to become the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s seat, Abdul El-Sayed faced a wave of Islamophobic attacks. Senator Tommy Tuberville called Dr. El-Sayed a “terrorist,” and Representative Nancy Mace (SC-01) described “every single Muslim holding public office in America” as “a threat to both national security and our republic.”
The United States is a predominantly white, Christian nation, and, especially since the events of September 11, 2001 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is often also an Islamophobic one. After 9/11, hate crimes against Muslim Americans peaked, and after the several wars and military campaigns the United States waged in the Southwest Asia and North Africa, anti-Muslim sentiments became the norm. Muslim Americans became associated with enemies of the state abroad. While Islam, like every other religion, has a broad spectrum of adherents ranging from orthodox to barely practicing, people began to associate all Muslims with the extremists of their religion. Many of these tropes and associations remain to this day, with Muslim men accused of terrorism, hiding and abusing their wives and daughters, forcing women to wear head-to-toe coverings, being violent, abusive, conservative religious zealots, and who are incompatible with democratic ideals.
As such, when adversaries want to incite fear and distract against progressive Muslim politicians, they lean into both characteristics despite the inherent contradiction. In this current context, accusations against the likes of Tlaib, Omar, Mamdani, and El-Sayed of being both extreme Islamists and radical communists are inaccurate and misleading. Nevertheless, the accusations persist, and as more progressive Muslims are entering politics and facing juxtaposed attacks.
Conservative media and politicians construct self-contradictory caricatures of progressive Muslim public figures like Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Zohran Mamdani, and Abdul El-Sayed, simultaneously framing them as radical, leftists/communists and ultra-conservative fundamentalists intent on imposing “Sharia law.” This employs strategic cognitive dissonance that allows political opponents to attack Muslim figures' progressive policy proposals, while simultaneously weaponizing their identity to trigger Islamophobic panic. This framing deprives Muslim progressives of legitimate policy standing, ensuring that, regardless of whether they champion secular social safety nets or community-focused governance, their identity is reduced into whatever existential threat fits the current news cycle.
