Ilhan Omar and the Politics of Resentment

Last November, voters in two congressional districts chose as their representatives to Congress Muslim women.

These new Representatives wasted no time making statements attacking the American president, and thereby a substantial share of the American people.

Within hours of being sworn in as a member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan, said of Trump, “We’re going to impeach the Motherf*cker.” Evidence of an impeachable offense was not required. She had none. Guilt or innocence wasn’t the issue. All that mattered was that Trump didn’t agree with her on the issues, so, of course, he should be impeached.

Even more troubling though is the pattern of anti-semitism, and ugliness coming from the 2nd young Muslim woman elected last year. Somali-American Ilhan Omar is from Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District. If anyone should appreciate the freedom and opportunity they’ve gained by coming to America, it should be Omar. Unfortunately, exactly the reverse is true.

She speaks of being a victim, and the terrible discrimination Muslims face in American society. She tells them to “raise hell, make people uncomfortable.” Fair enough.

But she also rants against Jews generally and Israel especially. She says politicians have been bought off by Jews. She claims the loyalty of Jews to America is suspect, and that they suffer dual-loyalty.

She discounts the fact that Israel is our strongest, oldest, and most reliable ally in the Middle East. And she cares not one wit that Jews have made huge contributions to the greatness of our country and to the freedom and prosperity we enjoy.

Most recently, in an address to the council of American Islamic Relations, Omar referred to 9/11 as “some people did something.” What?

3,000 Americans killed by a small group of radicalized Islamic terrorists and she describes it as, “some people did something.” She then goes on to blame that minor fact for why Muslims in America undergo systemic and constant discrimination. This new member of the United States Congress complains that she and other Muslims are treated as second-class citizens.

Of course, it’s clearly not true. But that’s not stopped her from prattling on about the victimization she and other Muslims suffer because of 9/11. And by so doing inferring that the death and destruction visited on America by “victimized” Muslims is actually America’s fault.

It is a rationale that rings in mosques from Iran to New York. And it’s just plain wrong. In fact, it’s hateful and it’s ignorant.

And what do we do? We elect two Muslims to our Congress who are firm believers in this pattern of thinking.

Let me remind you of the videos of Muslims who upon hearing about the planes plowing into the World Trade Center cheered and danced in the streets. From Palestinian refugee camps to Tehran, Muslims in the middle east took to the streets to celebrate the death of 3,000 men and women whose single crime was going about their business.

You can see a big difference between the U.S. and Islamic countries in how we each deal with catastrophes. In the U.S., individual Americans take up donations and give generously to ease the suffering of people elsewhere. Our government gets involved, healthcare professionals volunteer to go, businesses send equipment and technicians, churches organize and send food, blankets, and other essential supplies. Our military provides helicopters, ships, and troops. We feed, we rescue, we try to ease the suffering.

But when catastrophe strikes America, Muslims so often dance in the streets.

How do we explain people in Minnesota and Michigan could elect these two Muslims with little or no regard for the rest of their countrymen?

Here’s how, Tlaib and Omar won in districts where Obama dumped 10’s of thousands of Muslim immigrants with almost zero vetting. The new Muslims took over or formed new communities with NO interest in assimilating into the ways and culture of America. They don’t even understand America. As a result, many hate America. Radical clerics preach against America. The resentment festers and leads to an aggressive strain of anti-Americanism that feeds on itself.

Many of us suspect it was part of Obama’s plan. Bring in hundreds of thousands of Muslims with values inconsistent with America’s, isolate them in islands of Islamic separation, lock them in economic hopelessness, discourage assimilation, don’t require English be spoken or even learned, and wait for the new Democrat votes to roll in. That’s exactly what’s happened.

We’re stuck with it until leaders step up and stop using immigration as a political strategy to gain control. Stop importing people who have no interest in becoming Americans, who want to turn portions of our nation into the same desperately sad and hopeless places from which they came.

We need to make English the official language, insist people learn the history of America — the true history of the good that America has achieved in our own country and around the world — and not the untrue racist spin the left puts on our history.

And dare I say, we need to encourage outreach into Muslim communities with the Christian Gospel. I know I’ll be accused of Islamaphobia by the “woke” left, but I welcome an honest and open debate that contrasts the real differences between Islam and Christianity. Ultimately, the ideology of people like Ilhan Omar has been thoroughly colored by a world view that makes anger, victimhood, and resentment ultimate reality. The best remedy for those problems is love, forgiveness, and truth — the message of the Christian Gospel.