Democratic leaders have pounced on freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, over what some people characterize as anti-Semitic comments, yet they have given a free pass for years to Iowa’s GOP Rep. Steve King’s documented racist remarks.
Folks have weighed on Twitter to shine a light for Democratic leaders on the false equivalence between Omar and King.
See Also: Proud Racist Steve King Is Bringing One Half Of Diamond & Silk To Buffoon At The SOTU
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders drafted a resolution they planned to put to a vote on Wednesday to address Omar’s controversial remarks about Israel, marking the second time that party leaders have criticized her during Omar’s nearly two months in Congress, Politico reported.
Meanwhile, King was discovered recently promoting white nationalism on Twitter—just the most recent incident in a long history of defending white supremacy.
The resolution against Omar details the history and recent rise of anti-Semitism in the United States but does not specifically name Omar as an offender.
Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, first found herself in the middle of a firestorm over anti-Semitism on Feb. 12. She sparked outrage for her comment to a tweet about how she and Michigan’s Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib—the other Muslim woman member of Congress—could face consequences for criticizing Israel.
She tweeted: “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” a reference to $100 bills. When asked whom she thought was paying lawmakers, she replied: “AIPAC!” a pro-Israel lobby group.
Democrats were among her harshest critics. They condemned Omar’s comment as an “anti-Semitic trope” and demanded an immediate apology.
Omar apologized, saying that her intention was never to offend “my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. . . . This is why I unequivocally apologize.”
The new controversy stems from comments she made Feb. 27 at an event at Busboys and Poets, a coffee shop and restaurant chain in Washington, D.C., that held a “progressive town hall.”
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said at the event, supposedly referring to Israel.
Meanwhile, King quote-tweeted Canadian white nationalist Faith Goldy on March 1, the Huffington Post reported.
On Jan. 15, Republicans joined Democrats in a nearly unanimous vote, 424 – 1, that rejected white nationalism and white supremacy as “hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States.”
The carefully worded resolution, however, didn’t specifically name King, who ironically voted in favor of the measure. The resolution came in response to an interview in which he defended white nationalism.
“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?” he asked the New York Times in an interview published on Jan.10.
Here’s what some folks have said on Twitter.
