I don’t like Ilhan Omar’s views. But I like Trump’s criticism of her even less

These kinds of xenophobic attacks only do damage to the conservative cause

Ilhan Omar (Getty Images)

Rep. Ilhan Omar is a self-described “democratic socialist” who has made a name for herself as one the farthest-left voices in the House of Representatives. So, it’s little surprise that the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota has become a lightning rod for conservative criticism. A lot of it is well-deserved — but too often, the conservative critiques of Omar have strayed into disgraceful, xenophobic territory.

President Trump is the latest high-profile Republican to cross this line. He once again resorted to immoral and bigoted attacks on the congresswoman during a Tuesday evening campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

“How about Omar of Minnesota?” he asked, with the crowd booing in response. “We’re gonna win the state of Minnesota because of her.”

“She’s telling us how to run our country,” Trump continued. “How did you do where you came from? How is your country doing?”

“Firstly, this is my country and I am a member of the House that impeached you,” Omar responded in a tweet. “Secondly, I fled civil war when I was 8. An 8-year-old doesn’t run a country even though you run our country like one.”

As a staunch fiscal and constitutional conservative, it’s a rare day that I say this — but Ilhan Omar is absolutely right. President Trump’s attack is off-base from the very beginning.

The president frames “our” country in contrast to Ilhan Omar, but the congresswoman is a naturalized American citizen. Factually and morally speaking, she is just as much an American as Trump’s own wife, First Lady Melania Trump. Yet Trump is essentially suggesting that Omar isn’t really an American, a charge rife with bigotry that he certainly wouldn’t have made of a white, native-born Democratic foe. She might have horrible political views from a conservative perspective, but that doesn’t make Omar any less our fellow American.

It gets worse, though.

When the president goes on to blame Omar for the abysmal state of life in Somalia, a war-torn developing country, he enters truly ridiculous territory. Omar was a child refugee. She has zero moral culpability for how Somalia’s government has failed, unless you think she should have led a revolution before learning algebra.

The president’s deeply flawed criticism of Omar does so much more harm than good for the conservative movement. By dallying in xenophobic attacks, Trump feeds into the flawed narrative that all Republicans are racist and xenophobic. And by indulging in cheap ad-hominem jibes, Trump discredits the many valid and substantive critiques the right can make of the congresswoman.

Omar supports left-wing socialist ideas such as government-run healthcare via “Medicare for All.” Omar’s plan would throw 250 million people off of their private health insurance whether they like it or not, require more than doubling federal taxes, and harm the US’s world-leading rates of medical innovation. So, too, Omar backs the “Green New Deal,” a left-wing policy package that would cost an astounding amount — between $51 trillion and $93 trillion — over a decade and sharply raise energy costs for low-income Americans.

Moreover, Omar has made criticisms of Israel that some have called antisemitic, smeared millions of law-abiding members of the National Rifle Association as being pro “mass murder,” and mocked the violent assault of Republican Sen. Rand Paul.

All of this is fair game for conservative criticism. Conservatives: Have a field day with the far-left congresswoman on the merits of her radical economic ideas and many controversial political stances.

But the kind of openly xenophobic and factually distorted attacks President Trump keeps launching which target Ilhan Omar’s identity as an immigrant really should be considered off-limits. Conservatives, we can do much better.

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a conservative American political journalist based in Washington, D.C. and host of the Breaking Boundaries podcast