6. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO)
Tancredo is best known as a hard-charging crusader against illegal immigration who labeled Miami as a “third-world country” and charged Mexico with aiding and abetting an invasion of America. And while he’s fixed his long-shot presidential campaign almost entirely around this hot-button issue, he doesn’t actually think illegal immigration is the biggest problem facing America today. According to Tancredo, it’s only an “exacerbating factor” in an epic “clash of civilizations” that’s currently taking place between Christianity and other religions of the world.
The former Catholic turned Evangelical believes America is a fortress for Anglo-Protestant values that is under attack by “multiculturalism” and radical Islam, which is “the most serious foe of Christendom.” Tancredo has clarified that the Islamic threat is “not just a small group of people who have hijacked a religion” but rather an entire “civilization that is bent on destroying ours.”
This helps explain why Tancredo suggested bombing Islamic holy sites such as Mecca as a reasonable response to another terrorist attack on the U.S. Tancredo also helped defend the faith by ensuring that a 9/11 memorial to those who died on Flight 93 did not include a crescent-shaped formation of trees. Tancredo fought the original memorial design “because of the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam.”