Though she grew up in a really tough situation and has worked hard to overcome it, she does not make herself out to be a victim.
She has strong principles and can sometimes overstate her case, but from what I can tell she listens carefully, genuinely wants to help people, and is doing everything she can to make positive change. I have watched a lot of congressional hearings in the past few years, and Omar is more careful, more prepared, and more serious than the vast majority of her GOP colleagues.
This is a problem with progressives, which have disproportionate power in the media, and academia. As a group (for example Elizabeth Warren supporters) they’re as disproportionately white as the Republican Party. But they trade on the moral authority of purporting to speak for people of color. To that end, they amplify voices like Omar and Tlaib, whose politics are indistinguishable from those of secular white progressives, and not representative of Muslims. There are probably more Muslims who voted for Trump (about 1/3) then ones who are as extreme in their politics as Omar and Tlaib. This pisses odd people like my parents, who are typical Muslim voters (moderate socially conservative Democrats).
It’s particularly problematic when, as the OP points out, whites people are judged differently for amplifying the voices of someone like Omar or Tlaib versus the voice of one of the many Muslims who voted for Trump. It suppresses conservatism within the community—progressive Muslims can count on getting tenure, getting in CNN, because white people are allowed to agree with and amplify them. But when conservative Muslims speak, white people are afraid to agree, and progressive whites often feel comfortable attacking them as tokens. This happens to other people of color as well—in the dozens of Asians you saw on CNN talking about the Atlanta shootings, how many were Trump voters (like 1/3 of Asians?)
Omar gets “amplified” predominantly because Fox News inter al. keep dumping on her all the time, and shrieking about what an “extremist” she is (generally without any reference to specific actions – as I said it’s a pure identity politics thing for them). If you have come to think that Omar is an extremist, ask yourself who keeps telling you that.
It seems like you are upset that progressives don’t put a lot of effort into boosting the political influence of Trump supporters. But why ever would they? It’s not progressives’ fault that GOP-aligned media made Muslims the bogeyman du jour after 2001 and amped racist people up into believing that Muslim = terrorist, to the point that conservative Muslims can’t get anywhere in GOP politics.
As for CNN: CNN is a center-right pro-establishment pro-corporate media outlet that does some good journalism but like all cable news also fills hours every day with bloviating pundits and sensationalized nonsense. People should stop watching cable news so much.
Not even Democrats think she’s a “mainstream Democrat.” Political she’s squarely in the progressive wing. But my point was theological. She has extreme views on social issues recognized by virtually no American Muslim scholars.
I didn’t form any opinions of Omar from watching “Fox News.” I’m a longtime Democrat, from a Muslim country, who started watching Fox News during the Trump era because I was sick of progressives trading on the moral authority of purporting to represent Muslims while amplifying people like Omar whose views are highly unrepresentative of Muslims.
Progressives shouldn’t amplify the voices of moderate and conservative Muslims. They should stop acting like they represent “people of color” when the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is as white as the Republican Party.
She does not purport to be a religious scholar or an authority on religion...
Her politics seem broadly comparable to the majority of young Muslims (say, born > 1980) I have met in cosmopolitan American cities. These tend to be secularized and at least roughly share the values of their non-Muslim peers. Should such people not be allowed to participate in the political process?
I don’t understand at all where you are going with this line of criticism. You think young Muslims should be forced to have the same views on e.g. women’s rights, LGBT rights, inter-ethnic relationships, and reproductive health that their immigrant parents and grandparents had? You want secularized Muslims to stop wearing headscarves? You think Muslim-American politicians should ask Saudi clerics to decide their political positions? ...?
Which represents a very small fraction of all American Muslims. Also, note that in “cosmopolitan cities” you’re probably not interacting with a representative cross section of Muslim Americans.
> Should such people not be allowed to participate in the political process?
This is the third post where you try to turn it back to the politician, when I repeatedly make clear I’m talking about the media. These people are welcome to their politics. My problem is with the white people who control how Muslims are portrayed politically. Whenever you see a panel of Muslims speaking on issues, for example, they are always selected to agree with white progressive views. They never sound like my mom or aunts.
Then those political actors (organizers, activists, political staffers, policy analysts, campaign staff, journalists, NGO staff, ...) put effort into sharing their message and ideas and some e.g. end up getting elected.
If large numbers of people who “sound like your mom and aunts” get heavily involved in their local and regional political process, some of them will end up with their faces on cable news or whatever. It’s not like typical media outlets dial random telephone numbers until they hit on interview subjects who match the ideology of some secret cabal.
For better or worse though, in general older first-generation immigrants (of whatever background) are less involved in politics than more established groups. This comes down substantially to their own preferences about what to spend their time on, as well as cultural comfort/fluency, etc.
It's fine to be an extremist, I am as well along some axes. But it is just dumb to think that everyone who is not as extreme as you is a Republican/fascist/communist/white supremacist/critical race theorist. Worse, it hurts your cause by tainting the center-ey people who can actually get things done with the stink of rabid activism.