I see you all over the news, your image dominating the cycle like a red sock in a white wash. You’ll be going nowhere soon, as it seems you’ve been unwillingly selected by the Republicans to be the face of their definitely-not-racist 2020 campaign. It’s page 1 of the Trump playbook – find a target, attack them ruthlessly and make them the single focus of all debate so that every other policy issue or potential sex abuse scandal gets lost in the riot of indignation. ‘Lock her up’ becomes ‘send her back,’ all while Trump gurns and hand waves and placates all criticism by putting just enough distance between the words of the crowd and his own. It’s all done with a wink and a knowing nod; they know he can’t say it out loud himself but they all know he’s thinking it.
The Grand Orwellian Party seem content to expect us to ignore the evidence of our eyes and ears. They seek to reframe the entire Democratic movement as the communist ravings of four junior Congresswomen, twisting their words and policies into Jew and America-hating lunacy. It makes the vote a binary one, devoid of all nuance, creating a space in which a carefully gerrymandered electoral map once again fails to swing in favour of the actual majority. Trump might talk like an AI program that’s been taught to read by feeding Mister Men books through a series of racist blenders but he’s no idiot. He understands completely the advantages of firing up his base and aiming them in the direction of four faces that don’t represent their narrow vision of America.
It is a deliberate and planned attack that exploits the identity crisis within the Democrats. Any progressive political movement has to carefully balance urgency and caution to achieve any meaningful change; without the impetus provided by urgency the movement risks becoming complacent, and without caution there is no breathing room to win over the sceptics. Too much urgency and it becomes too easy to label a congresswoman as a radical terrorist-sympathising commie and thus dismiss her completely. Too much caution and you get Nancy Pelosi treading on eggshells around a demagogue who thinks the best America can do is to stick innocent children in filthy cages.
It is a stunning hypocrisy for Trump to label criticism of his administration as anti-American. He built his entire political empire around the idea that the country had lapsed into failure and he now seems determined to turn it into a banana republic with enough brazen political corruption on show to make Liberia blush. He is a walking moral failure, squatting in the street and shitting on even Reagan’s vision for immigrants in America. That he does it all in the name of patriotism and Christian principles would be laughable were it not for, y’know, the actual concentration camps. Liberty has been well and truly grabbed by the pussy.
Then there’s Israel, Ilhan Omar, and your own impressive inability to recognise how your words could be weaponised against you. All it takes is a few anti-Semitic allusions from a junior congresswoman and Trump makes them the words of the entire opposition. American Jews are now used as human shields and political footballs, assailed from both sides, facing outright bigots on the right and those on the left who increasingly seek to delegitimise Israel’s right to exist.
There is no reasonable equivalence between literal Nazis with tiki torches and criticism of the Israeli government but the very fact such criticisms are so easily weaponised makes it imperative that they be couched in careful language. That the man who defended the ‘very fine people’ in Charlottesville can now crown himself as the champion of Jewish interests against the bigotry of a supposedly radical left should be a pretty telling indicator of just how misguided your comments were.
The left is always going to be far worse at playing Trump’s game, hampered as they are by the pesky need to at least attempt to steer clear of the vilest of double standards. An apology is a start, Ilhan Omar, but now Trump has decided to cast you as the villain in his national psychodrama it falls to you to rise to the occasion. You have to be everything Trump says you’re not, watching your words more carefully than he watches a teenage beauty pageant in Jeffrey Epstein’s company.
You’re in a for a rough ride, Ilhan Omar, and despite being as American as any of them you’ll get far less leeway for prejudice or bigotry than any Republican ever will. Try to not walk straight into the trap. God knows we can’t take another four years of this.
Stick it out. Show him you’re not going anywhere and find that balance between urgency and caution. Do your bit to send him back to the swamp where he belongs.
If you can light a fire under Nancy Pelosi’s arse while you’re at it, that might be a good idea too.
I see you, Ilhan Omar. I fucking see you.
