Incitement

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

Trump and consequences:

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unidentified substance by a man with a syringe on Tuesday as she gave her first in-person town hall of the year in Minneapolis, during which she called for ICE to be abolished “for good” and DHS secretary Kristi Noem to resign.

Omar had only been speaking for a few minutes when a man in the audience got up and began to shout, while spraying her with the liquid. People at the meeting said the liquid had an acidic smell.

The good news is that it was a small amount.

Some, such as Minneapolis council member LaTrisha Vetaw, pleaded with Omar to end the town hall early to get checked, due to concerns for her safety because of the unidentified liquid . Omar refused to stop. “Ten minutes, I beg you … please don’t let them have the show,” she told the security team.

After the alleged attacker was subdued, there was applause from the room as he was escorted out. “Here is the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand, is that we are Minnesota strong,” the congresswoman said.

…

Omar is among a wave of Democratic politicians to react with outrage and horror to the Saturday shooting of 37-year-old VA nurse Alex Pretti, the second fatal shooting of a US civilian by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis.

You know…it’s hard to figure out how else anyone should react to the slaughter of Alex Pretti, especially given the reality of who and what he was. A cancer ward nurse in a veterans’ hospital? Come on.

Jasmine Crockett, the Democratic representative from Texas, said in a social media post that she was “disgusted” and “outraged”, writing: “Let’s be clear: nonstop hate and dangerous rhetoric from Trump and his allies has fueled this type of violence.”

…

Omar has long been a political target of the US president, who in recent months has renewed his xenophobic attacks, calling in a post on his Truth Social network for her to be “sent back to Somalia”. She arrived in the US as a refugee aged 12 and became a citizen more than 25 years ago.

Can we send Trump back to Germany? Now?

H/t Mostly Cloudy

Comments

9 responses to “Incitement”

  1. Harald Hanche-Olsen Avatar
    Harald Hanche-Olsen

    Can we send Trump back to Germany? Now?

    I can’t imagine Germany would want him, sorry. But Greenland has polar bears who would welcome him with open … mouths.

  2. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Could someone send me back to Sweden? Now? I have great-great-grandparents who were from there…I can’t afford the trip.

  3. Harald Hanche-Olsen Avatar
    Harald Hanche-Olsen

    iknklast: Just out of curiosity: May I ask what part of Sweden?

    My wife’s grandfather emigrated to the US from Vaasa, Finland – in order to avoid getting drafted into the Russian army.

  4. guest Avatar
    guest

    Does anyone know what the hell was in that syringe, and what the actual point of this attack was? It just seems bizarre and pointless.

    Adam Serwer had a great segment on the Atlantic podcast recently – he was talking, among other things, about how enraged the MAGA leadership are by the fact that the ‘wimpy’ ‘soyboy’ ‘crybaby’ progressive Left are bravely standing up against them, and continuing to protest despite knowing for a fact now that their literal lives are on the line, something the alt-right keyboard warriors would never have the guts to do. This is absolutely not what they’d expected, or psyched themselves into believing would happen. The idea of a multiethnic community organising and fighting back is literally unimaginable in their worldview.

  5. Harald Hanche-Olsen Avatar
    Harald Hanche-Olsen

    To get a tad more serious, though: I am divided on whether getting rid of Trump is such a good idea. The thing is, what you get instead is Vance. The problem with Vance is that he appears to be somewhat rational, and therefore more dangerous in the long run. (But also less dangerous in the short run, as he is more likely to make the proper decision in case of a false alarm regarding incoming nuclear missiles. The world just stubbornly refuses to be neatly ordered, dammit.)

  6. Bjarte Foshaug Avatar
    Bjarte Foshaug

    Guest #4

    It reminds med of something Timothy Snyder once said about the people back in February of 2022 who were convinced that the Ukrainians were going to surrender without a fight and that Zelensky was going to go into exile. Why did they think so? Because it’s what they would have done! I seem to remember Snyder suggesting that part of Captain Bone Spurs’ resentment of Zelensky (apart from refusing to provide dirt on Biden) had to do with Zelensky’s genuine courage making his own cowardice look bad.

  7. Ophelia Benson Avatar
    Ophelia Benson

    Harald – I know, but on the other hand the stupidity and ignorance of Trump are themselves a massive part of how bad his badness is. There’s no perfect or good choice here, but the torrent of stupid ignorance day in and day out is intolerable.

  8. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Harald, #3:

    I don’t actually know. I never knew my grandparents on that side, and my mother was never interested in talking about her past, though we did learn that she was half Irish and half Swedish. I could make a better guess on the Irish, though not perfect, since my family was (and is) Protestant.

  9. Mostly Cloudy Avatar
    Mostly Cloudy

    It turns out that the goon who attacked Omar not only has a criminal record, but is also a Trump supporter with a history of posting racialist garbage online:

    https://archive.ph/o2ukx

    It’s not clear what the substance in the syringe was yet. One hopes that the the syringe wasn’t filled with acid, contact poison or HIV-tainted blood.

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