As Republicans face increasing pressure to hold Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accountable for conspiratorial and bigoted remarks she’s made in the last several years, the Republican Party and its right-wing media allies are turning to a familiar deflection tactic by demonizing and attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), along with other progressive members of Congress.
As a right-wing commentator, before she was elected to Congress, Greene suggested a Jewish-created space laser was responsible for wildfires in California, cast doubts on the school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and Marjorie Douglas High School, supported the idea of assassinating Democratic leaders, and endorsed a QAnon-linked conspiracy theory that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a satanic child murderer. Following reports on these conspiracy theories, Democrats moved to strip Greene from her committee assignments after it became clear Republicans were unwilling to take action against her.
Republicans and their right-wing media allies have turned to the familiar strategy of deflecting, trying to redirect attention away from Greene and toward Omar and other progressive Democrats, most of whom are women and/or people of color. Several Republicans have introduced an amendment to strip Omar of her committee assignments in response to the effort to hold Greene accountable.
The bulk of GOP criticisms refer to comments Omar made about Israel in 2019, which were criticized by some as anti-Semitic. Omar swiftly apologized for her comments. Still, her critical stance toward Israel gave rise to disingenuous attacks against her by right-wing media figures. The bad-faith attacks continued even while the Republican Party repeatedly covered for right-wing anti-Semitism, which has led to violent anti-Semitic attacks in recent years. Omar is also a regular target of death threats and she became a perpetual right-wing villain.
This comparison between Greene and Omar is also particularly egregious in the context of anti-Muslim and violent rhetoric Greene has spewed toward Omar and other members of Congress. In February 2019, Greene went to the Capitol to insist that Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) -- a Palestinian American -- were not legitimate members of Congress as they had sworn their oaths on the Quran, and she demanded they retake their oaths on the Bible. Greene claimed that she wanted to tell Omar and Tlaib that they “really should go back to the Middle East if they support Sharia.” Greene has also promoted anti-Muslim propaganda in Facebook videos that surfaced in August 2020. And in September, Greene posted a Facebook ad featuring an image of herself holding a gun next to three members of the “squad” -- Omar, Tlaib, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Omar has responded to the Republican effort to “whitewash [Greene’s] incitement of violence,” calling it a “desperate smear rooted in racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.”