The Far Right Isn’t Being Left Out
Far-right think tanks have pushed the notion of cultural jihad in which America would eventually succumb to Sharia Law. Cultural jihad is a “proactive way of advancing a jihad or accessing key Western infrastructure.” The concept goes something like this: Muslims living in America are determined to undermine democracy and implement Sharia law. The way they achieve this is by running for local offices such as school board or PTA. Once elected into these offices, they push to amend the school curriculum. Slowly over time, they change the education system and then move on to other parts of American culture until, eventually, the country is under Sharia law.
If this sounds eerily familiar, it should. But it’s not the Muslim Americans who are leading the charge on working to alter the fabric of our nation. Far-right extremists have taken the cultural jihad playbook and adapted it for their gain. Extremists such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and QAnon followers have taken aim at local politics and are running for local offices across the country. The goal is to influence local politics, control how towns are governed, and have a say in the education curriculum, such as pushing back on critical race theory.
It is easy to write off extremist candidates as an anomaly or fringe individuals with zero chance of being elected. However, these candidates are no longer dancing on the fringe of our nation’s political scene; they are now representing a dominant wing of the Republican party.
The election of extremists in Congress, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Madison Cawthorne, to name a few, has emboldened fellow conspiracy theorists and embracers of extremist views to seek office. In 2022, there are more than 100 far-right extremists are running for office across the country.
While such individuals running to hold office and roam the halls of the People’s House in DC is unsettling, the real nightmare is the local political elections in which extremist organizations have gotten involved and run their members as candidates for those seats.
In California, Proud Boys member Jeffrey Erik Perrine filed to run for the newly drawn 7th California Assembly district. Last year, Perrine, who had been elected to Sacramento County’s Republican Party’s Central Committee, was expelled after a report outlined his connections to the Sacramento chapter of the Proud Boys.
Perrine’s office-holding ambitions showcase one of the many examples of extremists seeking to increase their political influence.
The goal of these small, local race wins is to build influence from the ground up slowly. The slow drip approach to seizing power at the local level will allow individuals such as Perrine to seek higher offices and have the ability to influence elections.
Originally, extremists and conspiracy theorists were reactionary regarding government, but have recently shifted to revolutionary and seek to change or overthrow the government.
While every election cycle has its fair share of fringe candidates, the problem is that in 2022, the so-called “fringe candidates” are being openly embraced by the Republican Party. When a political party encourages and allows extremists and conspiracy theorists to serve under its banner, it lends them legitimacy. And in turn, it emboldens more people to jump on the extremist bandwagon.
The legitimacy problem doesn’t end with allowing them into the Republican party. The doomsday scenario soon to be reality if they win elections and serve within leadership positions in the GOP, doesn’t stop there. American democracy is in the crosshairs when a mainstream party such as the GOP embraces and condones conspiracy theorists, election deniers, and those who openly engage in political violence.
As far-right think tanks continue to cite cultural jihad as the boogeyman which will tear apart American democracy, the real attack on our democracy is being led by those planting false flags of cultural jihad and seeking to dismantle the great experiment in plain sight one election at a time.