WASHINGTON — A campaign ad from an Indiana Republican congressional candidate sums up the arrival of migrants at the border in one word. He is not talking about a problem or a crisis.
He calls it an “invasion.”
The word invasion also appears in ads depicting two Republicans vying for a Michigan Senate seat. And it appears in an ad for a Republican congresswoman seeking re-election in central New York, and in another for a Missouri lieutenant governor running for governor of the state. In West Virginia, ads for Republican representative facing uphill climb to Senate, president says Joe Biden “created this invasion” of migrants.
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Not so long ago, the term invasion was relegated to the margins of the national immigration debate. Many candidates and political figures tended to avoid the word, which echoed the demagoguery of previous centuries targeting Asian, Latin American and European immigrants. Few mainstream Republicans have dared to use it.
But today, the word has become a staple of Republican rhetoric on immigration. Use of the term in television campaign ads during the current election cycle has already eclipsed the previous total, data shows, and the word is showing up in speeches, television interviews and even proposed legislation in Congress.
The resurgence of the term illustrates the shift in Republican rhetoric during the former president’s era. Donald Trump and his right-wing supporters. Language once considered hostile has become mainstream, sometimes precisely because it goes against politically correct sensibilities. Immigration has also become a divisive issue, with even Democratic mayors complaining about the number of migrants in their cities.
Democrats and migrant advocates denounce the word and its recent taboo. Historians and analysts who study political rhetoric have long warned that the term dehumanizes those to whom it refers and could stoke violence, noting that it appeared in the writings of the perpetrators of the deadly Pittsburgh shootings; El Paso, TX; and Buffalo, New York, in recent years.
Republicans defend the use of the word and view it as an appropriate descriptor for a situation they say has escalated beyond crisis levels and could help sway voters.
Mike Speedy, the Indiana congressional candidate whose ad used the word, advocates for tightening the country’s southern border. Speedy, a state lawmaker, traveled nearly 2,000 miles to Yuma, Arizona, to film his ad among the rusting slabs of the border fence. He argued that invasion was an accurate word because it describes a force that overwhelms and does not necessarily involve weapons. He said in an interview that he did not worry that the word could incite others to violence. “If they act on their hatred, they are common criminals and they should be brought to justice,” he said.
The word invasion appeared in 27 television ads for Republican candidates —…
