Our fearless leaders in Austin have finally identified the greatest threat to the Lone Star State, and no, it’s not the crumbling power grid or the fact that it’s 95 degrees in April. According to a recent Texas Tribune chat with State Representative Salman Bhojani—one of the first two Muslims ever elected to the state legislature—the real “emergency” is the “Islamification” of Texas. Never mind that Muslims make up significantly less than 2% of the entire state population; apparently, that’s just enough people to keep the likes of Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton awake at night, sweating through their expensive suits.
Representative Bhojani, who worked his way up from mopping gas station floors to sitting in the very seat once held by his loudest harasser, Jonathan Stickland, has a front-row seat to this legislative circus. While Republicans scream about Sharia law “spreading” through the suburbs, they’re busy filing bills to study it as an “interim charge” and trying to shut down groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations. It’s a classic Texas move: ignore the actual kitchen table issues like healthcare and education to throw “red meat” to the primary voters who think a mosque in North Texas is the first step toward a mandatory hijab mandate in the local HEB.
The hypocrisy is truly chef-kiss levels of ridiculous. These same “religious liberty” enthusiasts recently passed a bill removing the prohibition on teachers “encouraging” religion in schools—an accidental win for pluralism they definitely didn’t think through. Bhojani pointed out on the House floor that this technically means a Muslim teacher could now legally offer bonus points to students who pray five times a day, a realization that likely caused several heads to explode in the GOP caucus. Meanwhile, they’re busy mandating the Ten Commandments on classroom walls while excluding Muslim schools from private voucher programs, because “liberty” is apparently a VIP club with a very specific dress code.
Between Ken Paxton suing religious tribunals during primary runoffs and the Governor labeling civil rights groups as “terrorists” without that pesky little thing called “due process,” the state’s political playbook is looking more like a 1950s McCarthyism revival with a thick Texas accent. Bhojani even had to hire 24/7 private security after being doxxed by party chairs, proving that in Texas, “freedom of religion” often comes with a side of unmarked cars following your family around. It’s almost poetic—if by “poetic” you mean a depressing reminder that our elected officials would rather fight a demographic that barely exists here than actually fix a single pothole.
If we’re going to spend this much time and taxpayer money investigating a “threat” that makes up less than 2% of the population, shouldn’t we also be launching a formal Senate inquiry into the “Islamification” of Lubbock’s hummus aisle, or is that reserved for the next election cycle?
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/07/tribcast-muslim-rhetoric-backlash-texas/
