Texas Congressman Chip Roy went viral last year — with the help of Democrats who shared his vituperation far and wide — for a rant on the House floor blasting his own Republican colleagues. Excoriating the GOP conference as do-nothings, Roy memorably challenged his fellow Republican congress members to give him just “one thing” that they had accomplished. “One thing,” Roy challenged, “that I can campaign on…that I can say we’ve done.”
Breaking rank like that and challenging taboo subjects have become Roy’s specialty, and this week in the House the Congressman was again willing to risk criticism and accusations of intolerance in order to express his belief and fear that a “Muslim takeover” is happening in a major Western power.
Acknowledging that he expected to receive “scorn” as a result of his assertion, Roy nonetheless went forward saying: “Is anyone paying attention to what’s happening in London? I’m going to say it here on the floor of the House to get the scorn of people when I say you’ve got a massive Muslim takeover of the United Kingdom going on right before our eyes.”
Roy: I have some strong concerns about Sharia law and whether that’ll be forced on the American people. pic.twitter.com/m0m0noQzeE
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 7, 2024
Anticipating blowback, Roy answers the question about what he thinks is wrong with the “takeover” situation he alleges. Roy says he is worried about “Sharia Law” being “forced upon the American people.” (Roy’s implication is that once Sharia Law is implemented in the UK, it will proceed to threaten the United States.)
Though Roy has support for his fears among hardcore Christian conservatives, his anticipation of scorn was also accurate. Mehdi Hasan, the former MSNBC journalist, was among those who found Roy’s rant troubling and deliberately provocative — and frustratingly uncondemned. Hasan wrote the following in response to Roy’s commentary:
“You’ve got a massive Muslim takeover of the United Kingdom,” says this massively dishonest, massively ignorant, massively bigoted GOP Rep, Chip Roy. Will he be condemned? No. Will the Dems who voted to censure Rashida Tlaib insist Roy be censured? No. Islamophobia is fine.
Mehdi Hasan