It used to be that when a member of Congress delivered a fiery political speech in an election year, there were a few things you could take for granted.
For one thing, you could assume the speech related in some way to the United States and its citizens. You could also bet the people listening to the speech and clapping at all the applause lines were invested in some way in the future of America. You might disagree with them, or even think their policies would be really, really bad for the country. But there was never any doubt that American politicians understood that their job was to address America’s problems. That was the bare minimum you could expect.
Somewhere along the line, though, our leaders managed to sell the theory that rescuing third-world refugees and importing them into the United States would solve a lot of our problems. A generation or so later, that lie is the reason nearly 100,000 residents of the state of Minnesota speak Somali. It’s also the reason that Ilhan Omar, instead of being stuck in one of the poorest places on the planet, is now a sitting member of Congress. Whether she married her brother or committed tax fraud isn’t even relevant to the champions of diversity who welcomed her across our borders. Neither is the question of whether Ilhan Omar likes this country or anyone living in it. Instead, she and many of her constituents were allowed into the United States, supposedly on the theory that they’d assimilate, enrich our quality of life and contribute to our economy.
That was never going to be the outcome though, and this weekend Ilhan Omar made that very clear, in the form of a fiery election-year speech in a hotel somewhere in Minneapolis. This speech had nothing to do with America’s interests. It was not about Ilhan Omar’s plans to improve the life of a single American citizen, in Minnesota or otherwise. In fact, this speech wasn’t even delivered in English. Even though most Americans don’t speak Somali, I still want to share this short clip so you can see some of the subtitles. Watch:
Ilhan Omar tells a crowd of Somalians that her top priority is to put Somalia first and expand its territory
"The US government will do what we want, nothing else. They must follow our orders. That is how we safeguard the interest of Somalia."
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 28, 2024
Now, I don’t speak Somali — I must have skipped that class in grade school — so I can’t vouch for the translation that’s been accompanying that clip on social media, which you can see if you’re watching the video. If you aren’t, the gist of the translation is that Ilhan Omar is telling this crowd of Somali-Americans that they’re all Somalis first, and Muslims second, and they need to come to the aid of other Somalis and other Muslims. She doesn’t even mention the word “American” at all. Somalis first, Muslims second, and Americans not at all, apparently.
She goes on to criticize people living in Somaliland, which borders Somalia, and she suggests they’re not real Somalis. Then she briefly talks about the recent memorandum of understanding between Somaliland and Ethiopia, in which Ethiopia gained access to the sea in exchange for recognizing Somaliland as a sovereign state. You probably never heard about any of this because it’s not relevant to your life at all, and the geopolitical disputes between Somalia and Ethiopia and this other place you may not have known even existed has no bearing on the United States or its legitimate interests.
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Nonetheless, Ilhan Omar is very invested in this issue, because like a lot of progressives, she’s a hardcore nationalist when it comes to countries she actually cares about. She’s not worried if America is overrun with foreigners, but she desperately doesn’t want Somaliland to have any kind of recognition, because that would undermine Somalia’s national identity. Therefore, Omar promises to do her best to prevent this agreement with Ethiopia from being finalized. She says Americans will do whatever Somalis want, presumably because we’re so weak and naive.
To that end, Omar declares in no uncertain terms that she’s working to protect Somali interests in Congress, as opposed to American interests. From the translation:
The US government will do what we Somalians in the U.S. tell them to do. They will do what we want and nothing else. That is how we will safeguard the interest of Somalia. .. I am here to protect the interests of Somalia from inside the U.S. system. [I’m] working day and night to protect your interests. … Together we will protect the interests of Somalia.
It should go without saying but if that translation is even remotely accurate, then obviously Ilhan Omar needs to be expelled from Congress and deported immediately, if not imprisoned for treason. We’re a complete joke of a country if we allow people like this to serve in public office.
She’s openly admitting to working as a foreign agent against America’s interests. Some of Omar’s defenders apparently realized how bad this looks, and they sprang into action. Shortly after that translation began circulating on social media, someone named Colin Robinson posted,
This interpretation is slanted. Omar says she is representing the interests of Somalis in the United States, which is a legitimate task, as a Congresswoman in any democratic system.
So to be clear, this guy’s not talking about the “translation” of Omar’s remarks per se, but rather the “interpretation.”
Then, Ilhan Omar posted this reply to Colin Robinson,
It’s not only slanted but completely off, but I wouldn’t expect more from these propagandists. I pray for them and for their sanity. No nation state can survive if its states start to get involved in land lease negotiations with other countries without the consent of the federal government. Somalis in Somalia and in the diaspora are united in that effort and I stand in solidarity with them. No amount of harassment and lies will ever change that.
It’s not only slanted but completely off, but I wouldn’t expect more from these propagandists. I pray for them and for their sanity. No nation state can survive if its states start to get involved in land lease negotiations with other countries without the consent of the federal… https://t.co/bmdEAN6aUH
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 28, 2024
You’ll notice that nowhere in Omar’s reply does she dispute the literal accuracy of any part of the translation. She’s instead stating that the “interpretation” of her remarks is both “slanted” and “completely off,” without explaining further. She was as vague as she could have possibly been.
That’s why, last night, I asked Omar directly,
Are you denying the literal accuracy of the translation? Saying that the ‘interpretation’ is ‘slanted’ is not the same as saying the translation is inaccurate.
Are you denying the literal accuracy of the translation? Saying that the "interpretation" is "slanted" is not the same as saying the translation is inaccurate. https://t.co/XkW3wp6mL7
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) January 29, 2024
Now, you’d think that if she was really being misquoted to a great degree, Omar would have replied to my question, or the thousands of other people talking about her remarks last night. But she didn’t. She ignored all of us.
Not everyone was silent, though. A woman named Rhoda J Elmi, who identified herself as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Republic of Somaliland, confirmed the accuracy of the translation on social media. She wrote,
The language she employed was regrettably unbecoming of both the office she holds and the constituents she represents. … Her use of ethno-racist rhetoric didn’t escape attention and left many, with a deep sense of disappointment. .. We hope the house leadership and her caucus will take note of her public conduct, unbecoming a United States Congresswoman nor representative of the august house she serves in.
To be fair, this ambassador is hostile to Ilhan Omar. So are the various publications in Somaliland that are publicizing her speech — including something called the “Somaliland Chronicle.” They aren’t the most impartial sources on this topic, because Ilhan Omar doesn’t even want them recognized as a country.
But when I checked a handful of other translations online from various sources, I didn’t see anything that was much different. Instead, I heard repeatedly that the initial social media translation was accurate in the broad sense — meaning that while the words may or may not not be precisely right, the meaning is correct.
But none of these details really matter, for a simple reason: It’s not the job of any American citizen to have to decode what a sitting U.S. congresswoman is saying in a political speech in this country. If there’s any confusion about the translation, or what exactly was said about Somaliland, then it’s on Ilhan Omar.
For one thing, she shouldn’t have delivered a speech about a foreign country in a foreign language, so that no native English speaker could understand a word she said. We are worried so much about “inclusion” and “accessibility” these days. We have many laws on the books to enforce these concepts. Well maybe this is another accessibility law we need now. If you are an elected representative of the United States of America, you are not allowed to give speeches in any language but English. Everything you say publicly must be accessible and inclusive to American citizens.
But it’s worse than that, because once she made that mistake, she should have immediately clarified exactly what she meant, instead of just saying it’s “completely off” and then running away. The burden of proof is on Ilhan Omar. She’s supposed to work for us. And she’s repeatedly made “dual loyalty” accusations of her own in the past, so she should understand the criticism and how to respond to it. Instead she’s off giving speeches about her position on Somaliland, which not a single American citizen cares about, or should care about.
File this under things that should not need to be said: There should not be anyone serving this country in Congress who has any allegiance that comes before, or even exists on the same level as, their allegiance to this country.
The fact that Omar has created that doubt through her own conduct, repeatedly, is grounds to kick her out of Congress, at a minimum. At least one lawmaker is already on board with that. Last night Georgia Congressman Mike Collins wrote,
What if @Ilhan fought for Somalia from Somalia? Might be time to discuss expelling another member of Congress.
What if @Ilhan fought for Somalia from Somalia? Might be time to discuss expelling another member of Congress. https://t.co/8RoQrXJVBp
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) January 29, 2024
Mike Collins makes a great point, because it was just a few weeks ago that George Santos was kicked out of Congress for lying a lot and, I don’t know, being too sassy. But there was never any suggestion that George Santos is loyal to some foreign nation or hates this country. He never gave a speech in a foreign language about subverting the will of American citizens. He also never downplayed 9/11 as “some people doing something.” So why is he gone, and why is Omar still there?
That question needs to be answered, along with the question of why Ilhan Omar was ever in this country in the first place. Somalia is a failed state that exports nothing to the world but piracy and terrorism. Somalia as a country contributes nothing, accomplishes nothing, has achieved nothing. You’d have to go back thousands of years to find a time when Somalia had any real significance on the global stage. And yet Omar professes deep pride in it and pledges her undying loyalty to it.
That’s why there’s an important lesson we could all learn from these Somalians. Even Somalians like Ilhan Omar, who don’t even live in Somalia because her family fled the country for their own safety, still have fierce loyalty to Somalia and speak about it with great love and admiration.
In fact, a couple of years ago, Ilhan Omar said she had it better in a refugee camp in East Africa, than migrant kids do in the United States. Watch:
This is something of a recurring theme for Omar. At every opportunity, she goes out of her way to talk up Somalia. That same year, for example, she said that Minneapolis is more violent than the refugee camp she lived in in Africa. Of course, that didn’t stop her from calling for the dismantling of the police department, or for the importation of even more Somali gangs. That’s because she didn’t make the comment to improve Minneapolis in any way. She made it to degrade Minneapolis, using her old homeland as a proxy.
What’s amusing about Omar’s approach is that she’s apparently been taking things too far, even for the Somalis living in Minneapolis. That’s why she was booed at a Somali music festival in her own district back in 2022, because apparently they don’t like being compared to Minneapolis in any way. Watch:
It turns out Somalis living in Minneapolis don’t want you to bash America so much that you end up indirectly bashing their African homeland in the process. No matter how corrupt and dangerous East Africa is, its refugees still have some fondness for it. This is how all people outside of the modern western world think about and talk about their countries, even if their countries are objectively hell holes, even if they have left their countries and come here seeking refuge. They still often prefer the country they left to the one that took them in.
By contrast, to our great detriment, we’ve convinced ourselves that we shouldn’t talk about our own country this way or have the same level of pride in our own nation — a nation that is, by every conceivable metric, vastly superior to Somalia. That’s a point that even the Somalians themselves seem to agree with, which is why they can’t wait to escape their homeland and adopt this one instead.
A Somali news outlet called Garowe Online quoted this line from Omar in their article about her speech:
Somalia is Somali, Somalia is one, we are brothers, our land will not be divided.”
Now, this line alone, as translated by a Somali news agency, is enough reason to expel Ilhan Omar and send her back where she came from. She is declaring “we are one, we are bothers, our land will not be divided” — and she is saying this about a foreign country. For Ilhan Omar — who is supposed to be representing the United States — “our land” is not the United States. It is Somalia.
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You will never hear Omar speak with this kind of fire and passion about the country she is supposed to be representing in Congress. You certainly will never, and have never, heard her defend our sovereignty. If she uses the phrase “our sovereignty,” you know that she is talking about another country entirely. And yet the tragic truth is that almost nobody in Congress would talk about America the way Ilhan Omar talks about Somalia, a country where the average yearly income is 600 dollars and the average life expectancy is 55. There is not a whole lot to be proud of when it comes to Somalia. Yet Somalians are proud of Somalia, against all odds.
Meanwhile almost none of our representatives have that passion and fire for our country. And if they did talk about America that way — declaring that we are one, we are brothers, our national sovereignty will not be infringed upon — they would be condemned as xenophobic and ethnocentric. Only non-white people, from non-white parts of the world, are allowed to say these kinds of things. Those from America or western Europe are supposed to cheer not for the defense of their national sovereignty, but for its erasure.
Whatever else Ilhan Omar said specifically in her speech this weekend, it’s abundantly clear which constituency she really represents. She represents a very prideful and increasingly powerful foreign population that has no regard for the United States or its citizens. If there’s anything encouraging about any of this, it’s the fact that Americans could just as easily become zealots for this country and its interests. If we’re able to do that, even for a moment, then we’ll know it, because people like Ilhan Omar won’t be in this country anymore. We’ll stop importing hordes of people who hate everything about us.
And then, when our elected representatives deliver fiery election-year speeches, we might be able to actually understand them.
It’s a low bar, admittedly. But if they can clear it in Somalia, we should be able to clear it here as well.