The Trump campaign and administration highlight that the deployment of explicit Islamophobia is a tried, true, and proven political strategy. The rhetoric Trump used on the campaign trail appealed to sizable segments of the American electorate, providing national and local politicians with a blueprint to follow. “Trumpism,” and the politics of hate on which it capitalized, evolved into a political strategy for both upstart and established politicians. Incoming and incumbent candidates at all levels of politics, seeking to win in jurisdictions where the rhetoric of explicit Islamophobia finds fertile ground, will certainly look to Trump as a guide.

QUESTION: What evidence would distinguish genuinely effective Islamophobic rhetoric from rhetoric that works despite or independent of it? Worth probing the causal claim's basis.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 508