There's a cynical reason behind Rep. Nancy Mace's (R-SC) sudden obsession with hate speech, two journalists argued Saturday.
Mace's attacks on Muslim Americans — which MS NOW host Jacob Soboroff refused to read on the air because he felt they were too "deranged" — represent an organized political attack not reflective of her true beliefs, Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan argued.
"She knows right from wrong, she chooses wrong," Hasan said. "She chooses to red-pill herself, radicalize herself, whatever you want to call it."
Mace's anti-Muslim rhetoric amped up after very shortly after Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan earlier this month, Soboroff reported.
During one on-air interview, Mace falsely insinuated El-Sayed was a militant threat to national safety.
"We have jihadists being elected all over the place," Mace claimed in a television interview. "You should use the word jihadist because that's what's happening."
Soboroff called such comments "disgusting" — but Hasan argued they were something worse; a strategy.
"Nancy Mace is an interesting example because a few years back, Jacob, she went on TV and condemned Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene in her own party for being anti-Muslim," said Hasan.
"The islamophobia we're seeing is not organic," he said. "It is used cynically by Republicans to advance their careers, their agendas to distract from failing economic policies and a disastrous war."
Hasan pointed out that many Republicans have begun to refer to El-Sayed by his full name — not the one by which he identifies himself.
The journalist argued this is a trick Republicans picked up from President Donald Trump when he was trying to spread fear about former President Barack Obama.
"That is really dangerous," Hasan said.
