Politics has always had a weakness for imaginary enemies. They are convenient because they never quite disappear, never fully answer back, and can always be reshaped to fit the next campaign speech. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott's focus on alleged "sharia cities" increasingly looks less like a response to a genuine public policy problem and more like a political strategy built around fear of an already marginalised minority.
The language itself is revealing. "Sharia cities" conjures images of parallel societies replacing American law, yet there is little evidence that such places exist in the form often described by political rhetoric. American constitutional law already governs every city, county and state. Courts, legislatures and law enforcement operate under federal and state constitutions, not religious codes. The spectre being raised is therefore less a legal reality than a powerful campaign symbol.
That matters because symbols have consequences. When elected officials repeatedly single out Muslims as a unique source of suspicion, they risk transforming ordinary religious identity into something portrayed as inherently political or dangerous. Millions of Muslim Americans work, vote, pay taxes, serve in the armed forces, teach in schools and run businesses. They are not outsiders testing the limits of American democracy; they are participants in it. Reducing an entire faith community to a security concern distorts reality while deepening social division.
Fear-based politics follows a familiar script. First, identify an invisible threat. Then insist that only extraordinary vigilance can defeat it. Finally, portray critics as naïve or even sympathetic to the supposed danger. It is an old political formula because it works. Complex issues such as healthcare, infrastructure, education or housing rarely generate the emotional intensity that cultural anxiety can produce.
This is not unique to Texas, nor is it confined to one political movement. Across democratic societies, leaders have periodically discovered that cultural panic often attracts more attention than practical governance. The target changes with time, immigrants, refugees, minorities, intellectuals or religious communities but the mechanism remains remarkably consistent.
The tragedy is that genuine public safety concerns become harder to address when politics depends upon exaggerated ones. Resources and public attention drift toward symbolic battles instead of measurable challenges. Communities become more polarised, while trust between citizens steadily erodes.
Supporters may argue that raising questions about foreign influence or religious extremism is legitimate. Of course it is. Governments have every right to confront genuine criminal activity or violent extremism regardless of ideology or religion. But that requires evidence, precision and equal application of the law. It does not require broad insinuations directed at an entire religious community.
A democracy should be confident enough to distinguish between individual wrongdoing and collective suspicion. Once that distinction is abandoned, today's exceptional target can easily become tomorrow's.
Political careers built around cultural fear often enjoy short-term rewards because outrage mobilises voters more effectively than compromise. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that campaigns fuelled by suspicion leave lasting scars long after elections end. Communities remember who was treated as a neighbour and who was treated as a convenient symbol.
The real strength of American democracy has never been its ability to invent enemies within its own borders. It has been its capacity, however imperfectly realised, to protect pluralism under one shared constitutional framework. When political rhetoric begins elevating imagined threats above documented realities, the greatest casualty is not merely one minority community. It is the public's confidence that leadership is guided by evidence rather than anxiety, and by inclusion rather than exclusion.
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