The recent actions by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott reflect a troubling escalation in the politicisation of Islam in the United States (US), one that echoes and amplifies patterns cultivated during the Trump administration. By publicly designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood as ‘terrorist organisations,’ a power neither governor legally possesses, these actions are less about security and more about spectacle, weaponising fear for political gain. This strategy mirrors Trump-era tactics, which routinely leveraged national security rhetoric to target minority communities, undermine democratic norms, and energise a political base through symbolic, often unconstitutional gestures.
Trump’s policies, from the Muslim travel ban to the demonisation of predominantly Muslim nations as ‘shithole countries,’ institutionalised suspicion toward Muslim communities and normalised the idea that Islam itself posed a threat. These measures rarely relied on evidence but instead manipulated perceptions, echoing the same ‘Sharia panic’ described in the Florida and Texas actions. By framing Muslims as inherently un-American or prone to extremism, these policies legitimised exclusion, surveillance, and state interference into civil life, creating a precedent for governors to enact similar performative persecutions without legal grounding.
The danger of these political maneuvers lies not in actual security threats but in the erosion of constitutional protections. Administrative targeting, even if symbolic, fosters harassment, undermines civil rights organisations, and signals that political theatre can override the rule of law, a tactic Trump repeatedly employed. The pattern demonstrates a continuity: fear is weaponised, legal norms sidelined, and Muslim identity cast as a political liability.
Ultimately, the Florida and Texas actions reveal that the Trump-era strategy of scapegoating minority communities has metastasised into state-level governance. This underscores that the true threat is not Islamic law but the politics of fear masquerading as patriotism ,a legacy of Trumpian tactics now entrenched in Republican statecraft.
