“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
-Hannah Arendt
American citizen and Somali Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota has faced death threats since her congressional campaign. She has stood bravely in the face of cowardly racism and bigotry, as she fights for the most radical reforms America has ever seen. She does this along with three other congresswomen of color, natural-born, who all together call themselves “The Squad.” Since they have taken office, this group has fought tough battles against the hegemony, which includes the septuagenarian stalwarts of their own party.
Earlier this week, President Trump tweeted that the squad should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” singling them out because of their ethnicities. Then the President doubled down. In a fiery, ugly smear of a speech, reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s hate-mongering vitriol in Nazi Germany, the President of the United States called the aforementioned congresswomen “hate-filled extremists” who “hate our country,” and then proceeded to tell them to leave their own country.
In a liberal utopia, the crowd would have recoiled in horror and booed the evil Mr. Trump. But, in a liberal utopia, the evil Mr. Trump would not be President of the United States. America is not a liberal utopia. The President’s crowd loudly cheered him on, with whooping and hollering that blended together into a massive, chaotic swirl of noise. The only discernible language from this crowd was the incessant chanting: “Send Her Back! Send Her Back!”
In response, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gave Trump credit for distracting the public. She did not specify what he was distracting them from, perhaps it was from suffering children starving in concentration camps, which Congress just gave $4.6 billion to keep torturing the children. With that statement, Pelosi was done fighting the President. Meanwhile, a swarm of pundits descended upon the country’s newspapers and television networks to espouse that this is Trump’s campaign strategy for 2020. Even though the Republicans’ caravan paranoia killed their chances in key battleground states during the midterms, these experts are positive that Trump is intentionally doing this for strategic purposes, and that the Democrats should further distance themselves from the squad to avoid further ugliness.
As a human being, this is infuriating. The President’s rhetoric has consequences far beyond elections. This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue. A sitting congresswoman is getting death threats on a daily basis, and now that the President is targeting her, the possibility of her assassination is not foreign. The conservative establishment leveled similar attacks of “communism” and “extremism” against civil rights leaders in the 1960s, many of whom were killed. Since Trump’s election, the majority of terrorism in the West has been perpetrated by right-wing extremists, and hate crimes have increased by over 17%. The President’s actions are potentially life-threatening.
And yet, the Democratic leadership meets it with callous indifference and the media spins this as just another part of the horse race. How can this be? It seems the powerful simply cannot acknowledge a world that exists beyond their own egos. The press and partisans reacted similarly when $4.6 billion was given to Border Patrol. Instead of focusing on the consequences of such blatant injustice, the focus was on the infighting political parties and how hard it was for Nancy Pelosi, who has a net worth of $16 million and is second in line to be the President. I’m sure a young child who doesn’t speak English, living in a cage with no bed and only a toilet to drink out of will surely understand the hardships of those in Washington, and how they are really fighting for the people. Perhaps this is unfair, since Pelosi’s House fought for a much tougher bill that would only give Border Patrol $4.5 billion. Interestingly, only four members of the House voted against that bill: the four members of the squad.
And now they are under attack on a national scale. The line between politics and morality is now blurred because of these women’s authoritative positions as politicians and the intense racism they are facing from the President of the United States. But still, the establishment reacts the way it’s programmed to. This is why we have this President. Treating the President’s outrageous conduct the same as any other President is the same as just ignoring it outright. More importantly, not considering the consequences of those actions, and the actions of his enabling party, is why they can get away with it over and over and over again. It’s why we don’t live in a liberal utopia.
