Trump’s Attack on Ilhan Omar: How the 2020 Democrats Diverged in Response

Trump is the biggest hypocrite ever: 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia. Remember the first country Trump visited was Saudi Arabia. He even did their sword dance. Holding hands, cozying up with the Saudis, not condemning MBS for the murder of Khashoggi. What nerve to criticize Ilhan Omar

Disconcerting to equate “moderate” with tepid reaction. I’m a moderate Democrat and I would call Trump’s attack unforgivable, dangerous and moronic. And I too am watching. I won’t vote for a candidate who is too clever by half when comes to bigotry.

To Jennifer Epps-Addison: Re: “Black folks are watching. Muslim folks are watching. Brown folks are watching....And we’re making our decisions about who to support in real time. When your sister is being attacked, you can’t wait to get the politics right.” I am astonished at the political naivete behind your quote. You simply do not appear to realize how completely manipulated you are by trump. He is sure that by imposing litmus tests on the purity of a response to whatever cretinous remark he comes up with, he can sow discord among his opponents and drive wedges between them for his electoral gain. Your quote is a quintessential example of how that operates, and how effective is his divide and conquer strategy. How can you possibly not realize this after all this country has been forced to live through since Jan. '17? You and everyone else with a comparable holier than thou mindset should sit down and work out collectively whether your racially focused posturing and finger pointing is doing more harm than good to what should be the overriding (and sole) goal of everyone outside trump's base of know nothings, xenophobes, and racists, that is, to cleanse us from the amoral filth he's heaved at us since day 1. We need large coalitions of the fed up to do this. We cannot form such coalitions by playing along/cooperating with his divide and conquer strategy that pits one fed up group against another.

Congresswoman Omar's point was not to trivialize 9/11. Her point was to criticize encroachments upon freedom of speech in the aftermath of 9/11. Of course, it is not Trump's style to seek understanding of another's point of view in order to promote clarification and mutual respect.. His style is to distort an opponent's point of view to promote conflict, confusion, and distrust. He is a genius at so doing.

The ability of trump to manipulate thoroughly his opponents is clearly seen by this article. He is obviously exploiting the attention his "bully pulpit" (literally) attracts to sow divisions and distractions within the democratic party by making the responses to whatever idiocy he chooses to tweet or babble central to how people respond. If one candidate or another doesn't condemn the latest obscenity in strong enough terms, then other candidates will be forced to rush in to criticize that person for not having stood up strongly enough to the taunt, ugly thought, obvious lie, not so veiled incitement to violence, or whatever else he's capable of. This is a trap that he's created, knows how and when to employ, and is convinced will always work. The consequence is that media attention gets paid to the wrong thing, completely, i.e., the controversies he generates/provokes, and not the basic policies that make life very difficult for too many people. It is amazing that the democrats don't realize all this, and have yet to figure out a strategy to neutralize it. They appear hopelessly trapped within trump's webs of distraction, manipulation, and incitement. It's a pathetic display of ineptitude and lack of imagination that only he will profit from. The suburban swing voters will not, en masse, use the sheer ugliness and spiritual void at the center of trump to vote against him if their economic interests will not clearly be protected by his opponent.

Democrats are at it again! Tearing each other apart on the basis of such things as how quickly candidates responded to Trump’s attacks on Rep. Ilhan. Trump’s attacks have proved to be tactically brilliant, *further* setting Democrat against Democrat. Again, they’ve taken Trump’s bait, hook, line, sinker, and fishing pole. Meanwhile, the rest of the nation – it does exist, doesn’t it? – watches in dismayed amazement. Do such people care about whether Trump is re-elected, or only about themselves?

I think we all forgot a lot including Rep. Omar. In fact, in 2001, just after 9/11, there were in fact many calls, including by President Bush, not to let this horrific murder divide us. Bush went to a mosque to press this point. And at first there were very few attacks on Muslims - except for troublemakers who tried to spawn hate by, e.g., claiming that Muslims danced and cheered the murder and destruction on the NJ side of the Hudson. The same troublemakers are still spawning hate, towards Muslims and Hispanics, and everyone who disagrees with them.

Nowhere in this article is the quote by Omar that was allegedly misrepresented in Trump's video. I watched the whole quotation, in context, and did in fact feel it minimized the 9/11 horror when she said, "some people did something." Of course, she was focusing on the response to 9/11 and the Islamophobia that followed it, a legitimate point. I do think the video Trump tweeted is quite awful since it encourages hatred and is probably responsible for the death threats Omar has recently received. The fact that Omar's quote was left out of the article suggests Astead Herndon was afraid the readers would be swayed against Omar if it were included. Surely, the article should have included the whole paragraph the quote came from so people could judge for themselves whether or not it really was dismissive of the 9/11 tragedy. The job of the Times is to give its readers all the facts and let them make their own judgments.

Trump needs to stop stirring up this kind of blatant disregard that threatens the safety and well-being of others. His oath of office has bound him to work in service to the promotion of domestic tranquility---a state that his thoughtless words have too oft stirred up into mayhem. Stop, stop, stop, for God’s sake!

So according to one progressive activist "When your sister is being attacked, you can’t wait to get the politics right". Talk about playing into Trump's hands! Rep. Omar has said a number of things that have elicited strong criticism. She herself has shown a willingness to learn from some of the reactions, to realize, for example, that she had gotten much too close to a classic anti-semitic trope. This latest eruption of non-spontaneous outrage at her comments about anti-Muslim sentiment and actions, and 9-11 should be countered but there's nothing wrong with thinking a bit to find the best response. Trump likes to get people to react to him. Sometimes we should refrain. And a candidate for president needs to think a bit. I seriously doubt that Rep. Omar could get elected president (of course she's not even eligible). Could a candidate who is identified in many voters' minds with her get elected? The tweet Trump retweeted is despicable. But Rep. Omar is not very careful with her language. I'm not clear whether she was, in fact, playing down 9-11, but she did say something that could be characterized that way. And so it was. New York Senator Gillibrand felt the need to distance herself from any playing down of 9-11. Those who have then excoriated her need to give us better arguments as to why Rep. Omar's remarks did not, in any way, do so. I don't myself really understand her remarks and so can't mount a good defense.

It is not standing up for Rep. Omar to do the same to the remarks of other Democrats that Omar's adversaries do to her. This is a remarkably divisive report and those who are being played by it need to rethink. Stop parsing every word. Start looking for good will. Trump's purpose is to divide us. Don't let him.

There will be many voters in 2020 that were either born after September 11, 2001 or too young to remember that tragic day. It will be interesting to see how these unfolding events will effect their votes after living with this president for the last few years.

I wasn’t going to support Bernie because the media gave the impression he’s not electable. But the media thought Trump wasn’t electable and look what happened. I was very impressed with Bernie’s statement on Ilham Omar. He’s a man of principle, he doesn’t seem to wait for the election strategists to tell him how to react when it comes to meaningful issues. The attack on Ms Omar disgusts me to the core of my being. She is being singled out and vilified almost every week. How can she work, how can she go on when the president of the country is riling up the mobs against her? Yet she does get up every day and go on to speak out about issues. This woman has so much courage. For all those who twist her words into anti-semitism - you don’t even bother to hear what she’s saying, you instantly label her. And why when you seem to be so horrified about anything that might be misconstrued as anti-semitic, is it ok for you to be Islamophobic, so openly hatefully Islamophobic? Is it because you think Muslims are lesser people than Jews? Muslims deserve to be vilified? The hypocrisy is disgusting. Thank you Ilham Omar for having the courage to stand up against the racist, misogynist, islamophobic mobs. And thank you Bernie for standing up for Ms Omar. That’s the kind of president we need - who will protect an elected colored woman’s right to speak, who will not take the bully’s route in attacking easy targets and ripping them down. We need a good human being to lead this country.

Democrats need to learn self control. Trump’s statements serve only two purposes. To sow fear in his base and to wreck havoc in the opposition. By attacking each other, Democrats are going precisely what Trump intended.

The Green Deal, the Medicare for all, the as yet unnamed plan or deal or idea— all these are secondary to standing up to Trump’s hate filled rants, racist accusations, insults to women, non-response to Putin and other dictators, etc. Hillary made this mistake of not calling him out and standing up to this prolific lying bully. The number one position is a position against Trump. Don’t take a stand in real time, lose my respect and vote— and quite frankly you will wiped off the map in the general election when he bullies you around.

"implied she trivialized the horror of the Sept. 11 terror attacks"? No, that's wrong , she trivialized the horror of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Very disappointing to see Pete Buttigieg support Omar’s anti-American statements about 9-11. Wish he had had some more courage than ca omg to the small but noisy liberal progressive wing. That will lose him support from centrist Democrats.

I'm sorry, but this is why the Democrats are lining up to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2020. Yes, Trump is a mendacious bully, who takes words out of context and has no shame in how he attacks anyone who doesn't kowtow to him, but vociferously responding to his horrible tweets will not change anyone's mind. A measured response will do more to earn the support of the folks that will matter in the general election, without playing the Republicans' tit-for-tat game. For more about how unequivocally supporting Omar feeds right into the GOP strategy, read David Frum's piece in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/trumps-attack-ilhan-omar-trap-democrats/587128/

New ads - “Trail of Broken Promises” coming from the “War Room”....?? The first ad not bad but the labeling is sufficiently clueless, insensitive and offensive enough to once again give Democrats that “lose by a hair” edge.

Defending Omar is a litmus test for how instinctively progressive and anti-racist Democratic politicians are with Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, and Sanders in the lead, Harris, Gillebrand, and Booker in the middle, Pelosi trailing far behind, and many Democrats refusing to weigh in. Political attacks and crises are sorting Democrats out into those with the courage of conviction and those sniffing the wind then scrambling to keep up.

No, the President has chosen to respond to Rep Omar’s continued attacks on him and implicitly (because of her anti-Semitic comments) on his Jewish grandchildren. He is defending, not attacking.

"While acknowledging that most voters won’t be aware of the fine gradations between the various statements..." Exactly. Why do progressives insist on dying on such petty hills? Personally, I think it's a pride issue. Progressives claim to be enlightened, but underneath the veneer of do-good is a deep insecurity and selfishness.

Democrats seem always surprised by Trump's hate filled rhetoric, but we have been dealing with it for over three years now. We do not need to shout in response, but we need to respond en mass to it with a solid firm voice. In 2016 it seems we let Hillary Clinton deal with it alone, but now who ever wins the democratic nomination needs to be joined by all the campaigners as well as all of us. We must collectively continue to be the sane adult voices in the room no matter the insanity of Trump or that of his base who egg him on/

This Democratic Party is the most diverse in history. There are bound to be differences in tone and approach among the candidates. Too characterize every such difference as a "fracture' or "division," as The Times has often done lately, is to inflate and exploit such minor differences in order to build readership—in much the same way The Times jumped on Hillary’s emails in 2016 to the neglect of other issues in the campaign. This not only does a disservice to The Times, its readers and the Democratic process. But most of all, it inflames the identity issues that blunt the Democrats’ message about jobs, taxes, health care, day care, education, the opioid crisis—the kitchen table issues by which the Democrats can defeat Trump in 2020. It feeds division, not unity. How many middle class families have seen their taxes rise since Trump’s tax bill was passed by the Republicans, for example? How much space has The Times given to that issue?

Timing, content, and intent are important. Democrat voters are watching all the 2020 hopefuls. While Bernie was the first, Warren responded less than 20 minutes later and Inslee shortly thereafter. The others including Beto and Pete took many hours. Kamala sent a tweet on a different topic at that time as opposed to addressing Trump’s attacks on Ilhan Omar. The rest took a day. Timing is important because it’s a proxy for conviction. Do you really believe in it or are you just saying it because others have. Timing also shows how organized you are. Content matters. Warren’s message got the highest number of likes, despite Bernie being the first and having more followers, because she was direct and forceful and called out the entire Democrats in Congress to action. She did it in a way only she can given her moral authority, and as she’s always worked inside of the Democrat Party as opposed to Bernie. That to me showed the costs Bernie faces of standing outside the Democratic Party... except at election time - let’s be honest. Intent matters. Those candidates who made it about themselves had questions asked of them. People openly tweeted back to Beto and Pete demanding that they mention Ilhan by name. Pete found a way to mention his service in Afghanistan before, in his 4th tweet, mentioning Ilhan’s name. Yes. Voters are watching. To see courage in a real time crisis. The strength to take a risk based on principles. To fight for others and not make it about yourself.

Remember NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg's comment on Trump; "New Yorker's know a con artist when we see one." Like Trump, Gillibrand, has politic's worst disease; unbridled ambition, no spine and no ethics. Look at her record, her 'evolving" with the wind and the public mood to get our vote. New Yorkers still know a con when we see one and watching Gillibrand over the years change rhetoric, thinking and positions to suit the moment proves she believes New York's voters are deaf. She will never be President - and she shouldn't be - not in this age when that kind of slippery behavior is on file for all to see.

Trump has won whether or not he gets re-elected. We're so bombarded by hate speech and visual propaganda that people's natural instincts to say, Rep. Omar's words were wrong but Trump's response was monstrous, have been suppressed. Instead it becomes a horribly cynical parlor game of "how will it play with my base" if and when I get into this. I disagree with Bernie Sanders on a lot, but god bless him for being unafraid and able to call out the beast.

It must be very difficult for many Democrats to make a statement that attacks Trump’s islamaphopic attack on Omar, while not completely agreeing with her perspective on issues, including what happened on 9/11. One does not have to be anti-Moslem to disagree with this particular Congressperson.

Trump lives on media exposure. He is motivated to create vile controversies such as this one to get more air time. Just like a petulant child, he has learned that misbehaving gets attention. The most effective strategies will be those that give him less attention, not more.

Those who hesitated to voice support for Omar are caught between two constituencies. They want to appeal to those who were offended by Omar’s clumsy tweets from a couple of months ago while at the same time appealing to those who oppose the stoking of Islamophobia and racism. The result of the candidates’ trying to go in two different directions at once was to fall into the Hillary Clinton trap of seeming to be incapable of speaking sincerely about any controversial issue. The solution is to just stick to the facts. Not going to extremes in condemning Omar for her tweets (especially in light of her apology) leaves room for rushing to her defense when she becomes the victim of vicious propaganda.

How do Americans respond to Trump's hate provoking diatribes? We are under attack from the most immoral person to hold the office. How should the press respond? Maybe we can use his dysfunction as an opportunity to bring Americans together. One thing we should not do is treat this attack on all of us as though is it business as usual. If we are to continue as a democracy and to grow as a moral society we must speak up and speak up vigorously.

The Democrats need to call for Twitter to shut down Trump's account for inciting hatred. Of course Twitter would not have the guts to do this, but this demand will make a statement and put Trump on the defensive where he needs to be. We are experiencing desperate and dangerous times and the Democrats should not wimp out. They need to take charge of the narrative. That's how the Republicans have been successful for decades. They also thrive because they have their Fox propaganda machine and other right wing outlets demonizing Democrats, liberals and Socialists. If they lose again to this vile, racist, unqualified man-child, they will not only have lost my life long allegiance to them, but my allegiance to my country. I blame the Democrat's failures on allowing the Republicans and corporations to control the narrative since Reagan. The Democrats have got to choose a person who will pretty much be guaranteed to beat Trump, whatever gender or color that person is. Choose your candidate wisely, Democrats. This person must be able to take a punch and also throw them with intelligence, humor and facts.

Yes, it's terrible that Trump and the conservative media acted just the way we knew they would. But the Democrats also need to get a lot smarter about not giving them ammunition. Isn't it obvious that everything she and other progressives say will be scrutinized for material by the hate machine? How about having an editor look at the words they use and tweak them into something like "A few people did a horrific thing"

Quite a conundrum. On the one hand, a spiteful, hateful man looking to exploit fissures in the opposing party digs in deep and ugly, resulting in threats of violence and worse. On the other hand, a Congresswoman who has been making incendiary, anti-Israel (and yes, by extension, anti-Semitic) remarks since her first day in office has caused many of those fissures. They are both bad for the US. The threats and vitriol directed against Ms. Omar are reprehensible. Full stop. Ms. Omar’s repeated anti-Israel/anti-Semitic comments are also reprehensible. So, too, is Congress’s relative silence on this matter. If we unify against hate speech (and hate), then we must be against hate of all types from all sources. Trump must be voted out. With his ability to rile up his base, and with Ms. Omar and the progressives leading the fragmentation of the Democratic Party, this possibility looks less likely every day.

Sanders' quick response said it all: "disgusting and dangerous" and as another example of "Trump's racism and hate." If we are going to defeat Trump we need to nominate a person like Sanders who we can count on to attempt to begin REAL change (it won't take place over night) to our country.

Why do Trump's racist, sexist and just generally insulting comments have to be answered at all? Might it not be better to just let his invective hang out there, to be absorbed without the commentary from anyone else? Trump's incivility and offensiveness gains strength when left on it's own. We have time to digest the invective and really see it for what it is, in all its hateful foulness. Rushing to counter it can just erases the portent of his comment and replaces it with others. Trump's indecency should be allowed to sink in, not be pushed aside to make room for counter argument.