Yesterday, Donald Trump posted an incendiary video of Rep. Ilhan Omar's dishonestly edited remarks juxtaposed with the footage of the Twin Towers collapsing on 9-11 to send a message to his millions of followers that Rep. Omar, as a Muslim, is to blame for the attacks.
Joy Reid's panel ripped into what Trump is trying to do with his fearmongering, which, by the way, came straight from Fox News' Brian Kilmeade's filthy hater mouth.
Panelist Tim Wise said it best:
"We have to go back to the fundamental truth of the full context of the statement that she was making for which she's now being attacked, " Wise instructed. "The point she was making is you have some folks who are Muslim who do something and then everybody gets blamed."
Yes, exactly. And Wise went on to illustrate that point with reality: "Imagine for a minute that a Congressperson had tried to make the very reasonable point that we ought not judge all Christians by the fact that people who call themselves Christians have bombed or burned 200 abortion clinics or family planning centers in the past 25 years in U.S. and Canada combined or people who claim they are Christians assassinated and murdered abortion providers and family planning doctors."
He continued, "If somebody made the point don't judge all of us by the acts of some and a Democratic president tweeted out they are minimizing abortion killings we would be horrified because it isn't right to judge an entire community by the acts of a handful."
Of course it's not. Evangelicals would be rising up with pitchforks and torches to cry foul at the wholesale condemnation of their religion because of the actions of a few. Fox News would run endless chyrons and segments, speeches would be made on the Senate and House floors with plaintive and angry howls from wounded so-called Christians.
And yet that is exactly what Fox News and the extreme right led by Donald Trump are doing. They aren't doing this because of any deeply-held belief, but the damage they're doing is everlasting and dangerous.
As my friend NewsHound Ellen wrote in an email, "The way I see it, the attacks on Omar, AOC and Tlaib are part of a larger picture of dangerous right wing aggression. Trump and his cronies are calling Democrats treasonous, considering sending what they consider disease-ridden, dangerous immigrants to sanctuary cities (hoping they'll kill Democrats), calling for the arrest of James Comey and other FBI/IC officials, suing Twitter accounts for millions, etc., etc."
Her Very Important Point: "My point is that the threat to Omar is a threat to all of us. Hers is worse and more immediately dangerous but the people going after her want to come after us just as badly and we will only embolden them if we don't all do what we can to stop it now."
And THIS is why every Democratic leader, every 2020 candidate, and every one of us has to condemn what the right wing is doing to the women of color who speak truths they want to use as weapons to get them killed.
Enough. Everyone has to stand up and stand with Rep. Omar. Today.
