This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 21 episode of “The Katie Phang Show.”

When people — and political parties — show you who they are, believe them … each and every time.

Last week, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on antisemitism and Islamophobia, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana accused Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. 

After Berry, the only Muslim witness in the hearing, repeatedly denied Kennedy’s accusations — and pointed out how insulting they were — the senator went on a tirade that ended with him telling Berry to “hide [her] head in a bag.”

It was a disgusting scene and it was the latest example of something that has become part of the DNA of the GOP: what I now call Republican rage rhetoric. 

We saw a similar display last week from the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, who vowed to restore his anti-Muslim travel ban, during an event in Washington, D.C.:

We will get them out of our country. I will ban refugee resettlement from terror infested areas like the Gaza Strip. And then we’ll seal our border and bring back the travel ban. Remember the famous travel ban? We didn’t take people from certain areas of the world because I didn’t want to have people ripping down and burning our shopping centers and killing people. But we’re not taking them from infested countries.

The old saying is true, “The fish rots from the head.” 

But the incredible thing is that this racist and xenophobic rhetoric is used as a tool and a scare tactic to convince people to vote. Trump told attendees at a rally in New York last week that immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia were “destroying the fabric of life in our country.”

“We are not going to take it any longer and you’ve got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot. You will have a safe New York within three months,” he said.

“Give me a shot.” It’s like that line out of The Temptations song “Ball of Confusion:” “Vote for me and I’ll set you free.” Free to do what? To be racist? To be anti-immigrant? 

We owe so much to immigrants who helped build the foundation of this country. But for Republicans, this outrageous messaging is just dangerous red meat for their base. They don’t care if it’s even true. 

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, admitted to CNN that he was fine with “creating stories” to get the media to pay attention. After Republicans “created” insulting stories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, officials say the city has faced dozens of bomb threats, schools and city buildings have been shuttered, and the Haitian community is living in terror. 

Recommended

Career Growth

How Halle Berry is redefining aging, advocacy, and entrepreneurship

Know Your Value staff

Career Growth

The 2025 ‘50 Over 50’ list is here—Meet this year’s trailblazing women

Know Your Value staff

Vance, one of Ohio’s two U.S. senators, still justifies perpetuating those baseless stories because the media wasn’t focusing on their campaign enough.

These are not the men you want running the nation. These are not the men you want representing us on an international stage. 

But on Thursday, Trump took things a step even further, using remarks that were supposed to focus on combating antisemitism to question his lack of support from Jewish voters and call his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, “the enemy.”

“If I don’t win this election — and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens, because, at 40%, that means 60% of the people are voting for the enemy — Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years,” Trump said.

Harris has been a prosecutor, an attorney general, a senator and now the vice president of the United States but, in this climate of political violence, Trump has reduced her to “the enemy.”

Look, I can’t tell you how to vote but I can show you who you’re voting for. 

Some members of the Republican Party don’t embrace the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Instead, Trump says that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Trump says migrants are “animals.” Trump says that immigrants are wrecking our country. 

They’re saying the quiet part loud. But the real question here is: Are you listening? They’ll take your vote but once they have it they’ll cast you aside, if not cast you out of the country. Come November, you must vote like your future depends on it — because it does.