Anti-Muslim propaganda film by Texas right-wingers seizes on San Antonio's Alamo as central symbol

Credit: Courtesy Image / Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas

A dramatized execution scene opens the trailer to the movie Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas. An actor dressed as a terrorist gestures to a man on his knees as the words “The Peak of Islam Jihad” flash across the screen.

“This American man must pay the price for America’s failure to surrender to the Islamic State and submit to the will of law,” the actor in terrorist garb says. “We will urinate on your Constitution, and soon you should have Sharia in your White House.”

Marketed as a documentary, the new feature-length film tells the story of San Antonio’s most iconic landmark through the lens of far-right filmmaker Chris Burgard.

Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas drips with Islamophobia and arrives as state and national Republican lawmakers increasingly lean in on anti-Muslim rhetoric ahead of the midterm elections.

Critics argue the film, released July 4, traffics in demonstrably false information and anti-Muslim propaganda. Even so, some right-wing political figures have been quick to promote the film as they continue to whip up fear of the other.

‘We lost the Alamo’

Produced by Tim Lowry, the owner of production company DesertRock Entertainment, Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas is scheduled to appear on LIFE! Christian Television, an El Paso-based evangelical broadcasting network. It’s also for sale online for $19.99.

While promoted as a documentary, the movie weaves in both fact and fiction, often with narrative glue heavy on unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. The trailer and promotional content offer a disturbing peek at what the film contains.

In one animated clip from the movie released by Burgard, a song with the chorus “Just go home, don’t Sharia my Texas” plays over shots of an animated cowgirl chasing Muslim men with a pistol. During the song, she stops by a row of women wearing burqas, pulling them off one by one to reveal Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader uniforms underneath.

The majority of the film, however, is shot in documentary style, warping the story of the battle for the Alamo by substituting modern-day Muslims for Santa Ana’s 19th-century forces. In this retelling, the siege of the Alamo is meant to represent Texas being endangered as a whole.

The idea, Burgard explained in a YouTube clip, is that just as the Alamo held out against Mexican forces for the sake of the Republic of Texas, the Lone Star State will hold out against Islam for the sake of the nation.

The takeaway is a demonstrably false conviction that U.S. Muslims are engaged in a fight to replace the U.S. Constitution with Sharia law.

“This is ‘Remember the Alamo’ time. We lost the Alamo, everyone was killed. But it gave General Houston time to train and rally the army,” Burgard said on right-wing YouTube channel Royal House of We the People. “This is history repeating itself.”

Calling out propaganda

Along the way, the movie attacks the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, one of the nation’s largest and most visible advocates for Muslims’ civil rights. The nonprofit has long been a target of conservative ire, and Gov. Greg Abbott last year designated it a foreign terrorist organization without providing substantive evidence to back his claim.

Imran Ghani, director of CAIR’s Houston chapter, told the Current Burgard’s movie fits an alarming trend as the Republican Party, facing punishing midterm losses, seeks a scapegoat as it tries to hide its failures.

“What we’re seeing is an extremist minority within the far right that has very clearly made it a campaign feature of this idea that ‘Muslims are here to take over,’” Ghani said. “Because Muslims have not made it politically pricey for the far right to attack us with this kind of rhetoric and propaganda, we are an easy target, an easy distraction.”

Elisabeth Anker, professor of political science and film at George Washington University, told the Current that Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas goes beyond spreading propaganda for political gain. Since it’s packaged as a feature-length documentary, the movie can give outright falsehoods an air of legitimacy, she added.

“Not only is it propagandist, it’s demonstrably false. There’s a difference,” Anker said. “It seems to be pushing disinformation and a fake narrative about Sharia law coming for Texas, which is not true.”

Texas State Board of Education member Julie Pickren poses with Michael Flynn at the premiere of Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas.

Right-wing endorsements

Even though the movie has received little mainstream media coverage, some Republican figures have already endorsed it.

One of those is Julie Pickren, a Texas State Board of Education member who recently helped lead the charge to dramatically rewrite the state’s social studies curriculum. Pickren fired off social media posts endorsing the film and trumpeting her attendance at its first screening.

Anker said the endorsement is troubling.

“It’s actually quite dangerous to see a film like this being circulated by a representative on the State Board of Education, which is usually intended to provide knowledge, research and expertise to students, rather than political disinformation,” the professor said.

The movie itself features commentary from Michael Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who served as a National Security Advisor to Trump during his first term. During a 2021 appearance at San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church, the conspiracy-prone Flynn called for the United States to adopt “one religion,” meaning Christianity.

Other talking heads include former Infowars conspiracy-monger Alex Jones, one-time 60 Minutes correspondent-turned-conspiracy theorist Lara Logan and Pete “Doc” Chambers, Texas gubernatorial candidate who garnered 11.2% of the 2026 Republican primary vote but lost to Abbott.

Misinformed fight

Another featured voice in the film, Pastor Troy Brewer, senior pastor of Open Door Church in the North Texas town of Burleson, spoke with the Current about Remember the Alamo’s message. He said he sees himself as a warrior in a battle for the nation’s soul.

“Are we going to be a constitutional republic that is part of the United States, or are we going to go by foreign rule and reign of an ancient Sharia law that is very, very, very, in my opinion, barbaric, and by every single standard, a threat to anybody that loves freedom?” asked Brewer, who also heads Troy Brewer Ministries and Answer International.

Sharia law is a focal point of Burgard’s film, and right-wingers nationwide have increasingly positioned the moral and religious code as an existential threat to the United States. The movie presents Sharia as a subversive plot to undermine the Constitution.

Experts say it’s nothing of the sort.

CAIR’s Ghani explained that Sharia is a broad moral and ethical framework that different Muslims interpret in different ways. The Constitution and Sharia can and do coexist without problems, he said.

“Just like Catholic Canon law and the Jewish Halakha, Sharia informs our religious practices,” Ghani said. “There is no movement to replace the Constitution with Sharia. American Muslims overwhelmingly live their faith while respecting the Constitution.”

Indeed, it would be impossible to install Sharia law without removing or completely rewriting the Constitution, according to legal scholars. The First Amendment has long enshrined the separation of church and state.

Even so, delegates at last month’s Texas Republican Convention voted to make banning Sharia law a top legislative priority.

What’s more, Abbott has frequently spouted off about the dangers of Sharia, and a recent investigation by Texas Monthly accused his office of using state agencies to harass a North Texas mosque.

Lines of communication

Despite the Muslim community’s rejection of the growing anti-Sharia narrative, far-right figures such as Brewer continue to push it. When asked how he would respond to Muslims who might be offended by the film, Brewer tried to turn the question around.

“I’m offended at what they do all over the world. I am offended at what they want to do to our nation, to our culture, to our state,” Brewer said. “I am also offended with what they think they can get away with.”

Ghani — a Texas resident who loves this state but is all too familiar with such sentiments — said he hopes outreach by Muslims can help quell the distrust. Many who believe the kind of propaganda contained in Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas have never met a Muslim and don’t know any better, he added.

“I’d love to include an invitation to the producers of the film to come speak with me, to speak with any representative of CAIR, to come visit a mosque,” Ghani said. “I’d be happy to arrange a sit-down so that they can hear from Muslims what Islam is all about.”

Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.

Anti-Muslim propaganda film by Texas right-wingers seizes on San Antonio’s Alamo as central symbol

Tags: