Anti-Muslim fear-mongering empowered by right-wing foundations fuels mainstream hatred.

Evidence

“When you’ve got folks who are looking for the worst in Islam and are promoting that as the entire religion of 1.5 or 1.6 billion people, then you only empower the real extremists,” wrote Brian Fishman of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center in a New York Times article on the rise of these anti-Muslim fear mongers. With millions of dollars coming from right-wing foundations, these Islamophobic hucksters have succeeded in pushing hatred of Muslims into the Western mainstream. This is directly tied to the numerical growth of anti-Sharia legislative bills proposed across the country in the last few decades. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 626

Categorization

• XREF: The funding-tied mechanism connecting fear-mongering to legislation feeds the capstone’s causal spine. — connects to: Seven right-wing foundations spent over $40 million funding Islamophobia from 2001 to 2009.; Anti-Islamic propaganda reached tens of millions of voters through shadowy funding; Right-wing politicians stoked a clash-of-civilizations narrative that globally increased Islamophobia. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 354 (+13 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 626

Broader Connections

• Right-wing Islamophobes are structurally embedded rather than marginal figures #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 34
• Islamophobia operates by reducing Muslims to a monolithic bloc #expands (0.50) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 433