Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) has joined her progressive colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-13) in blaming the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton on President Donald Trump and conservative celebrities.
On Sunday morning, Omar retweeted an article from Mehdi Hasan, a columnist for The Intercept, who declared that “we can no longer ignore Trump’s role in inspiring mass shootings.”
“After El Paso, We Can No Longer Ignore Trump’s Role in Inspiring Mass Shootings”
My latest on the tragic carnage this weekend, and how the shooter’s white nationalism, talk of ‘invasion’ and approval of ‘send them back’ fits a pattern.
Pls read/share: https://t.co/RYonOBt4aN
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 4, 2019
“That there could be a link between the attacker and the president should come as no surprise. But it might. Over the past four years, both mainstream media organizations and leading Democrats have failed to draw a clear line between Trump’s racist rhetoric and the steadily multiplying acts of domestic terror across the United States,” Hasan writes in his article.
She also retweeted Karine Jean-Pierre, chief public affairs officer for MoveOn, who said that “Republicans in Congress do nothing” while “Donald Trump incites violence on Twitter and at his rallies.”
Two mass shootings in less than 24 hours.
Republicans in Congress do NOTHING.
Donald Trump incites violence on twitter and at his rallies. #VoteThemOut
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@K_JeanPierre) August 4, 2019
“More terrorists have cited Donald Trump as an inspiration for attacks on the U.S. homeland over the past three years than any other person or organization on Earth,” said another tweet shared by Omar.
More terrorists have cited Donald Trump as an inspiration for attacks on the US homeland over the past three years than any other person or organization on Earth.
— Samuel Sinyangwe (@samswey) August 3, 2019
She retweeted several comments that pinned the blame for the attacks on conservative superstar Ben Shapiro, despite reporting from some outlets that the Dayton shooter supported Antifa and gun-control measures.
“But many of them love your writings and videos so much. For some, you are literally the person they follow the most,” liberal activist Shaun King wrote in a tweet about Shapiro, which was shared by Omar.
https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1158037084055252997
“Let’s see if Shapiro stops spewing the kind of enabling hatred that winds up in all of these manifestos,” read another comment retweeted by Omar.
https://twitter.com/themaxburns/status/1158041592017629185
She went on to share articles that accused former White House senior advisor Steve Bannon of building a “white nationalist movement in the U.S.,” called Fox News a “hate-for-profit machine,” and criticized Trump for reading “an empty, insincere speech off a teleprompter.”
Omar was still sharing similar material on Twitter as of Monday night, and quoted from a Truthout.org article that claims Trump’s rallies prove he is a “fascist.”
“Such expressions of hate and racial cleansing are about more than the privileging of fear and emotion over reason. They also constitute an updated version of a mob frenzy that encourages its participants to take pleasure in demonizing others,” Omar quoted from the article.
“Such expressions of hate and racial cleansing are about more than the privileging of fear and emotion over reason. They also constitute an updated version of a mob frenzy that encourages its participants to take pleasure in demonizing others.” https://t.co/0l2BKMiK5B
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) August 6, 2019
As The Michigan Star reported Monday, Tlaib made many similar comments on Twitter and said that “more people are dying” because Trump “fails to fight white nationalism.”
During his speech Monday, Trump explicitly denounced white supremacy.
“The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate. In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” Trump said. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart and devours the soul.”
Omar faced criticism last week for retweeting a comment from actor Tom Arnold, who suggested that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) deserved to be violently attacked by his neighbor in November 2017, The Minnesota Sun reported.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
