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Without speaking, the congresswoman arched her eyebrows, as if to say, “What do you think?” as the doors closed.
“The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage,” she wrote.
The episode demonstrated a new reality for Washington: In a few months, Omar has displaced Nancy Pelosi as the Republicans’ favorite liberal boogeyman, a new face the GOP can weaponize in an attempt to depict the entire Democratic party as extreme and out-of-touch.
This puts Democrats in a difficult position: either defend their colleague against Republican attacks or to keep at arm’s length a controversial member who engages in over-the-top rhetoric many Democrats consider problematic or even bigoted. For her part, Omar seems to be at once surprised at becoming a polarizing figure while also embracing the role.
Appearing on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Wednesday night, Omar made her most fulsome comments about the issue, responding to Colbert’s question about what it’s like to have been used as a political cudgel during her first few months in Congress. “This whole process really has been one of growth for me,” Omar said.
She then referenced a conversation she had recently with her predecessor, former Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, who is Muslim and now serves as the attorney general of Minnesota. Omar said they were discussing things that historically have been offensive to African Americans, some of which she told Ellison she did not find offensive. Ellison, in turn, told her that is because she is an “African immigrant,” Omar said, and that “none of those things hold history for you.”
The point, Omar seemed to be making, is that she perhaps lacked a clear understanding of the full history of anti-Semitic views in the US.
“Oftentimes when you are speaking you might not understand the historical context of some of the words that you might use and the kind of pain it might incite for people,” Omar told Colbert. “And so, in this process I am learning that everything is not as simple as we think we might want to state it.”
The GOP’s Enemy No. 1
While Republicans have trained fire on other Democratic freshmen congresswomen, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, they seem to have settled on Omar as their most potent weapon to use against Democrats.
The 30-second ads, backed by AAN’s six-figure buy, are running online in at least four House districts held by freshmen Democrats. They charge that Omar “keeps hurling anti-Semitic slurs” and includes images of a now-deleted tweet from 2012 in which she stated “Israel has hypnotized the world.”
The official Republican Party is focusing on Omar as well. On Monday, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee called Omar and Tlaib “bigots,” and linked the two members to a newly announced congressional candidate in Michigan.
“Ilhan Omar downplays terrorism AGAIN,” read the RNC’s email.
It’s likely too early to determine whether the focus on Omar will benefit Republicans at the ballot box. Unlike Pelosi, who for years has been a nationally-known political figure, Omar is relatively new to the national scene. It’s unclear what effect she will have on voters, whether she’ll swing them away from Democrats or motivate Republican base voters.
A dilemma for Democrats
What the GOP scrutiny on Omar does accomplish, however, is putting her fellow Democrats in a bind. Moderate Democrats have been forced to respond to her comments, and the results have been awkward. Democratic New York Rep. Tom Suozzi, in an on-air interview Tuesday with CNN’s Brianna Keilar, struggled to avoid addressing Omar’s tweet about Miller before admitting that her type of rhetoric “makes it more difficult” to reach solutions on immigration.
“We need to take the temperature down,” Suozzi pleaded.
Efforts by House leaders such as Pelosi to curb Omar’s taste for the polemic have only worked to temporarily tame her Twitter feed. A House resolution in March denouncing anti-Semitism spearheaded by pro-Israel Democrats received pushback from progressive allies of Omar. Why, they asked, was their colleague being singled out when Republicans like Iowa Rep. Steve King and even the President had said worse things about immigrants?
Michael Meehan, a Democratic strategist, called the scrutiny on Omar by Republicans “rubbish politics” and said he was skeptical it would hurt Democrats. “Clearly they’re looking for another boogeyman,” Meehan said of Republicans.
“Permanent residency”
If Omar intends to stop speaking out, either to deny Republicans the ammunition or to acquiesce to Democratic leadership’s wishes, she shows no signs of doing so. She sees her notoriety as a political asset, burnishing her credentials as a fearless speaker of truth to power.
“It’s been interesting to see such a powerful conference of people be so fearful of a freshman member of Congress,” Omar told CNN on March 26. “I hope that they figure out a way to not allow me to have a permanent residency in their heads.”
CNN’s Sunlen Serfaty contributed to this report.
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