Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) took to the New York Times Thursday to weigh in on the magnitude of President Donald Trump’s racist attacks against her and the other three congresswomen of color known as “the squad.”
Omar wrote in an NYT op-ed Thursday that the “send her back” chants at a Trump reelection rally last week reminded her of when she and her family fled Somalia amid a civil war, only to discover that their expectations for America vastly differed from their actual experience of living there.
Omar, who has stood her ground against Trump in the face of his racist attacks, wrote that “the president’s rally will be a defining moment in American history.”
“It reminds us of the grave stakes of the coming presidential election: that this fight is not merely about policy ideas; it is a fight for the soul of our nation,” Omar wrote. “The ideals at the heart of our founding — equal protection under the law, pluralism, religious liberty — are under attack, and it is up to all of us to defend them.”
Omar then argued that not only has the Trump administration “weaponized” democratic institutions by restricting voting rights and disrespecting congressional subpoenas, but Trump himself has “used overtly racist rhetoric to strike fear and division in communities of color and religious minorities across the country.”
“It is not enough to condemn Mr. Trump’s racism,” Omar wrote. “We must affirmatively confront racist policies — whether the caging of immigrant children at the border or the banning of Muslim immigrants or the allowing of segregation in public housing.”
Read Omar’s op-ed in the New York Times here.
