Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an Islamophobic pressure group. (Bryan Smith, PA Images) The legal tussle over President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to ban refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries is being watched with the intensity normally reserved for a Super Bowl showdown. Experts track every move and countermove, trying to gauge which team is ahead and who will ultimate prevail.
Unlike a normal game, though, there is more to these court battles than the points that flash on the scoreboard. They are also an opportunity for hate propagandists to air their tropes and talking points before a wide audience.
Indeed, if their past campaigns are anything to go by, this may be their primary objective – to exploit the high profile spaces afforded by democratic processes and institutions for propaganda purposes, thus nudging mainstream perspectives toward their own worldview. The actual implementation or enforcement of whatever policy they’ve been agitating for may be of secondary importance.Anti-Muslim ideologues have described themselves as fighting in a “lawfare battlespace”.
