Muslim Candidates Feel The Effect Of Trump Attacks On Ilhan Omar [View all]

[pdsimdars]

President Donald Trump’s decision to vilify Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has had real, harmful effects not just on the first-year congresswoman, but on Muslim candidates running for public office at the state and local levels as well.

In March, Omar faced significant criticism ― including from members of her own party ― for comments about Israel, which they said played into anti-Semitic tropes. She apologized, but Trump and his allies used the dust-up to further paint her and the Democratic Party as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. In April, Trump tweeted a video that dishonestly purported to show Omar downplaying 9/11. He also continued to characterize her as anti-Semitic in tweets and speeches.

Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, saw a rise in death threats following all the Trump attacks. Her office said she “receives daily death threats ― almost all of them threatening to kill her because of her religion.”

The fallout didn’t just end there. HuffPost spoke to five Muslim Americans running for office in Virginia, which has state elections this year. Some of them saw an increase in death threats after the Trump attacks on Omar, underscoring the point made by many of Omar’s allies that the uproar was never really just about her ― it always had far more to do with her religion.

Others expressed disappointment that members of their own Democratic Party didn’t stand by the congresswoman more forcefully.

. . . . .

“The rhetoric from the right, unfortunately, is empowering some very unhinged people to make some really nasty threats,” Rashid said. “I’m experiencing that, and I know it’s still probably a fraction” of what Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the other Muslim woman elected to Congress in 2018, are receiving.

Ibrahim Moiz, a Democratic candidate for the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, said that while he hadn’t received any death threats, his wife had a hateful run-in after the Trump attacks on Omar when someone accosted her at a local shop.

“She went by, and someone just started yelling at her because she wears a headscarf,” Moiz said. “She engaged with them back because she’s a fighter. But thankfully, it stopped there.”

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/muslim-candidates-islamophobia-virginia_n_5ce2bda5e4b09e057808d0c5


To me, this is yet another reason the Dems can't wait for the election but must impeach that horrible sub-human now.