American founders saw the Muslim world as the republic’s opposite

Evidence

In the American mindset, or at least that of the educated classes, the Ottomans were a major imperial power even if during this period they had lost some of their power. The political elite that founded and oversaw the American nation “after 1776 regarded the Muslim world, beset by oriental despotism, economic squalor, and intellectual stultification, as the antithesis of the republicanism to which they had pledged their sacred honor.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 211

Categorization

• XREF: Same founding-generation framing Said documents for European Orientalism — the American case shows the tropes transferred nearly verbatim to a new republic. — connects to: America was religiously plural from its beginning. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 519; American founders framed Muslim power as a mortal threat to Christendom — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 100; Antebellum American views of Muslims shifted with historical circumstances (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Antebellum American attitudes to Muslims were elastic, not fixed #qualifies (0.85)
• Antebellum American views of Muslims shifted with historical circumstances #expands (0.80)
• Founders weaponized Islam as a slur in election politics #expands (0.80)
• Muslims were constructed as equals only while their empires could not be dominated #expands (0.72)