President Donald J. Trump’s Attacks on The Squad Aren’t Just Racist; They’re a Deliberate Attempt to Stifle Their Freedom of Speech

Congrewwwomen Four speak of Trump's comments

Commentary by Nida Khan

On Saturday morning, Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Deb Haaland addressed the annual gathering of progressives at the Netroots Nation conference in the city of brotherly love (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not present on this panel). Introduced by Netroots’ board member Aimee Allison as ‘the squad’, the four women touched on everything from the suffering of migrants and horrendous conditions at detention facilities, to impeachment to foreign policy and everything in between. But it was perhaps Omar’s following comments that perfectly encapsulates everything at this moment when the President of the United States is telling duly elected women in Congress to go back to where they came from: “One thing I tell women of color is that we never needed to ask for permission or an invitation to lead.”

It’s no secret that the squad has been fierce and they hold no punches — and nor should they. The idea that a man who made the most incendiary and outrageous statements while running for President and won (and continues to make such despicable statements while in office), now has the audacity to try to silence these brave Congresswomen is not only insulting, but it is downright dangerous. Yes, his tweets and comments are racist, point blank, no question. But what they also are is an attempt to restrain the squad, to eliminate dissent and stifle individual thought. It is yet another dictatorial maneuver designed to castigate anyone who has a different perspective than the wannabe King, and anyone who doesn’t bow down to the conservative line.

“The Democrat Congresswomen have been spewing some of the most vile, hateful and disgusting things ever said by a politician in the House or Senate ..,” tweeted Trump. He said the progressive Congresswomen “hate our country” and that we should all “Get a list of the HORRIBLE things they have said.” He referred to them as “anti-Israel”, “anti-USA” and even more inflammatory, “pro-terrorist”. When asked where he thought they should go, Trump responded: “It’s up to them. Go wherever they want, or they can stay, but they should love our country. They shouldn’t hate our country.”

The fact that the President of the United States is openly questioning the allegiance of members of Congress in this manner is beyond frightening and channels the era of McCarthyism. Trump has singled out these four women, basically painted them with a big red “T” for traitor and galvanized his supporters to view them in the same way. There’s not even an attempt to sugarcoat it; he is openly saying that if you don’t think like we do, you can go back to wherever you came from. It’s pretty ironic for a group of constantly aggrieved individuals who relentlessly scream about ‘free speech’ to try to take away the First Amendment rights of those they disagree with. It is an alarming series of events at a time when independent thought and dare I say, resistance, are needed more than ever.

For the first time in the history of this nation, two Muslim women were elected to the House of Representatives, including the first ever lawmaker who wears a hijab. Less than a year later, the President is calling them ‘pro-terrorist’. This is your typical racist ignorant retort when Muslims assert themselves, actually humanize Muslim lives, call out foreign policy or simply provide another perspective on issues like war. It happens to me virtually every time I pen a piece; I’m almost always called a ‘terrorist sympathizer’, or ‘pro-terrorist’. But when the person who occupies the highest office in the land says the same, it sends a chilling message to all Muslims and anyone who may want to speak out that you will in fact be targeted.

Omar, Tlaib and AOC have been very vocal about their views on subjects like Israel, Palestine, the Middle East, war and more. Omar was rebuked, and rightfully so, for using language that perpetuated anti-Semitic tropes, but her consistently larger point of calling out Israel’s treatment of Palestinians or our support for such treatment (even greater under Trump of course), should not be lost in this discussion. Instead of an actual policy debate, there have been concerted attempts to try to smear her as somehow anti-American, ‘pro-Al Qaeda’ or ‘pro-terrorist’ as the President just did. It is utterly disgraceful and reprehensible. It is a personal attack designed to discredit her or anyone else who may hold the same views as her. She should absolutely be more careful and sensitive with her verbiage so as not to inflict harm on another minority group, but let’s be clear, criticizing Israel does not equate to being anti-Semitic. For far too long, Palestinians and Muslims in general have been erased from this conversation, and now the President would like to do the same.

AOC has repeatedly questioned the funding of endless wars; yesterday Kellyanne Conway said that a lot of us are “sick and tired of our military being denigrated” and “America coming last”. This is yet another calculated attempt to not only tell the squad to keep their mouths shut, but it also sends a message to the rest of the nation that we too must watch what we say, write or even think out loud. It’s Omar, Pressley, Tlaib and AOC today, and it could be any one of us tomorrow. Who’s to say that the next journalist, writer, educator, historian, celebrity or anyone that this President and this Administration doesn’t like won’t be singled out and branded with a letter “T”?

Many try to dismiss Trump’s antics as sheer strategic politics. While they are absolutely designed to rile up his base and energize people behind him for 2020, they are actually even more nefarious than that. He truly wants his supporters to believe that the squad (and anyone who holds similar ideas) are somehow ‘opposed to core American values’ and that they consistently ‘talk down to the U.S.’ as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich himself put it. Not only is it beyond insulting to tell women of color to essentially know their place, but it sends a clear warning that if you dare speak out against the U.S. in any manner, you will be deemed as somehow un-American. It’s the notion that all people of color in this country should be grateful that we are even here — never mind that this land belonged to Native Americans originally, or that the country was built on the backs of slaves, or that many are here because ‘where they came from’ has been robbed and ravaged of its own resources.

In analyzing what has transpired over the last few days, we cannot forget that power and control are some of the core tenants of white supremacy. It’s important to remember that the feigned outrage by Trump, his supporters and the right in general is to the idea of a perceived loss of power. When in actuality, we are still very far from a semblance of equality. For example, while the 116th Congress is the most ethnically and racially diverse ever, it is not even close to representing what our nation truly looks like today. As Pew pointed out: “Non-Hispanic whites make up 78% of voting members in the new Congress, considerably larger than their 61% share of the U.S population overall.” It begs the question, if there’s this much outrage over an imagined loss of power, what will happen when whites, specifically white males, actually start to lose power?

For far too long, many people of color have felt marginalized, silenced or simply ignored. Our voices have been left out of the conversation, out of policy debates, out of media roundtables and out of the public discourse at large. If there is any lesson young children of color in this great nation (and across the world for that matter) can take from the fierce Congresswomen under assault today it’s that they too should be unapologetically true to who they are and know that striving for a more just and equitable society means facing opposition from many places far and wide. They should understand that being a patriotic citizen means dissent; it means advocating and fighting for change; it means challenging the status quo both through your sheer existence and via the causes you champion; and it means never allowing anyone to take away your ability to do so simply because he or she is threatened — even if that person occupies the White House.
It means, as Omar rightly stated, never asking for permission.