Jeff Danziger lives in New York City and Vermont. He is a long time cartoonist for The Rutland Herald and is represented by Counterpoint Syndicate. He is a recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons, a novel and a memoir. Visit him at jeffdanziger.com.
Is American citizenship conditional? The country certainly will welcome the immigrant, the newcomer — “as long as.” And that list is long. As long as you don’t criticize. As long as you don’t make a mistake. As long as you fit a certain, undefined ideal of “American.”
Watching President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night, I realized how much decorum matters only for some, and an impossible “perfection” is demanded for others who will never clear the bar.
A wild-eyed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia can stand and point and yell, interrupting the president of the United States with her disrespect, and instead of feeling any shame for acting out, will probably replicate the moment to raise money from constituents and fans who love the show.
After all, it worked in 2009 for fellow Republican representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who no doubt earned extra points because the object of his ire was Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States, a man who had to be “perfect.” That “You lie” has since been used against him doesn’t mean Wilson would change a thing.
While witnessing Greene’s act, I remembered the scene on the floor of the same Congress about a week ago, when Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota mounted a futile defense before Republicans, as predicted and promised, cast her out of its House Foreign Affairs Committee for words used to criticize policy on Israel, something she had quickly apologized for years ago.
The irony is that some of the same colleagues who ultimately voted against her — including Greene and the speaker of the House — had never felt the need to walk back their own comments, including a now deleted Kevin McCarthy tweet about Democratic donors trying to “buy” an election, employing the same trope members of the GOP and some Democrats had accused Omar of using.
Their Americanness would never be called into question.
In Omar’s presentation, I was struck by the riveting photo of herself as a child, staring straight ahead, both ready and unsure of what would come next after fleeing one war-torn country and spending years in a refugee camp in another.
That the little girl is now a congresswoman in the U.S. House of Representatives should be Exhibit No. 1 in the resilience of the American dream, the tale of someone starting out with little who has risen to the top.
But since the girl-turned-congresswoman is Ilhan Omar, a Black woman, a Muslim and born in Somalia, her story will always be suspect for some. Instead of seeing her global experience as something that could inform any debates on a committee devoted to exploring U.S. policy in the world, it has become a cudgel to threaten when she steps outside the boxes she is put into.
What has been the go-to command for politicians from Donald Trump to GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas? They never hesitate to tell the woman who is as American as they are to “go back,” to “leave.” At the same time, they are insulting the voters she won over and the Americans she represents.
And when Trump targeted her, he also included American-born Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, making clear that his test for being entitled to have a voice includes more than being born on U.S. soil.
"What opinions do you have to have to be counted as American?” Omar asked. “That is what this debate is about.”
Anyone viewing Biden’s speech had to be struck by the disconnect. It is Republicans who always complain of “angry” Americans trying to impose their will, but who never hesitate to not just display anger but revel in it.
Who is this “woke mob” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred to in her rebuttal?
I have no idea what is “mob-like” about Americans asking for empathy for fellow citizens, for law enforcement dedicated to protecting and serving everyone in every neighborhood, for truth-telling in an inclusive history of our country, the last being something Sanders herself barred in one of her first acts as governor of a state with a lot of citizens who have been excluded. She banned the teaching of “critical race theory,” which has not been shown to have ever been taught in her state’s public schools but has become a convenient shorthand for any mention of race and racism in the study of a mythical American history.
It was Republicans in that congressional audience Tuesday night who seemed to find it darn near impossible to stand and clap for Biden’s defense of democracy and condemnation of the true “mob,” who tried to undermine it on Jan. 6, 2021.
If all those who broke windows and attacked police and tried to stop the vote-counting that day had looked like Ilhan Omar, does anyone doubt the reaction would have been quite different? Many Republicans have tried to wish away that day, showing contempt for the America they profess they are protecting from Ilhan Omar.
Despite talk of moving past the white-hot, divisive rhetoric of Donald Trump, the choice of his former press secretary to set their future with a speech that rivaled Trump’s scene of “American carnage” proves who matters in their America versus who can never complain and has to always explain.
Some, like Sanders, are obsessed with “woke fantasies.” Others strive for their own hopeful version of the American dream, where all may not agree but everyone definitely belongs.
A. Ilhan Omar is a Somali-American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district.
A. Ilhan Omar is a member of the Democratic Party and has been an advocate for progressive policies such as Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, and criminal justice reform.
A. Ilhan Omar is an immigrant herself and is a vocal advocate for comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. She is host of the CQ Roll Call “Equal Time with Mary C. Curtis” podcast. Follow her on Twitter @mcurtisnc3.
Reprinted with permission from Roll Call.
Reprinted with permission from DailyKos
GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's dreams of one day becoming speaker of the House are going up in flames as the Republican caucus devolves into a raging inferno of internecine guerrilla warfare.
Specifically, House GOP radicals have turned caucus politics into an unsightly brawl more resembling the kicking, screaming, hair pulling, and spitting of a middle-school rivalry than the growing pains of major political party plotting its path to renewed relevance.
No one is more central to this uniquely embarrassing GOP drama than McCarthy, who has turned spinelessness into an ethic in his quest for power. McCarthy's moral deficit has left any members of the GOP conference who still possess a shred of integrity to condemn the actions of the extremists putting the lives of both their GOP colleagues and Democratic counterparts at risk.
It started last month with McCarthy allowing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to target as "traitors" the 13 House Republicans who voted for a bipartisan infrastructure bill supported by nearly two-thirds of the country. Egged on by Greene & Co., death threats ensued, but McCarthy turned the other cheek, because speakership.
But death threats left unchecked breed more death threats and, once McCarthy proved his obsequiousness, the GOP extremists were bound to expand outward. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado got right to work, deploying Islamophobic slurs against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
After Boebert tagged Omar the "jihad squad” and McCarthy crawled under a rock, GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois called Boebert "TRASH" for hurling the anti-Muslim trope.
But it was Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina who would draw the next trashy moniker after she "100%" condemned Boebert's dangerous antics on CNN Tuesday. In response, Greene labeled Mace "the trash of the GOP Conference" in a Tuesday morning tweet.
Despite Mace telling CNN Tuesday that she hadn't come to Congress to name-call, the exchange devolved quickly.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene is a liar. And I’m not going to tolerate lies, racism or bigotry, whether you are Republican or Democrat,” Mace said during a Tuesday interview on Neil Cavuto’s Fox Business show. “She’s crazy. She’s insane. She’s bad for the party. And I’m not going to put up with it.”
This is exactly what happens in a caucus completely devoid of moral leadership. Indeed, McCarthy has become so useless, some of the GOP's saner caucus members are actually publicly begging him to at least act like a leader.
“I think when you’re in a position of leadership, you have to stand up. You have to deal with it,” said Rep. Tom Reed of New York, one of the 13 GOP House members who voted for the infrastructure bill. “I appreciate the fact that Kevin called our colleague directly to discuss the matter with her. But at some point in time, you also have to stand up and just call it out for what it is. This type of rhetoric cannot be condoned. It cannot be upheld.”
If McCarthy had more than two brain cells to rub together, he would realize this truth: His bid for the speakership is over, particularly if he continues to let the GOP radicals roll him like a limbless log day in and day out. Last week, Greene used Rep. Matt Gaetz’s podcast to note that McCarthy doesn't have “the full support" of the caucus to be speaker.
"There’s many of us that are very unhappy about the failure to hold Republicans accountable, while conservatives like me, Paul Gosar and many others just constantly take the abuse by the Democrats," Greene said.
It’s over, McCarthy. You appeased the radicals right into burning you at the stake.
Reprinted with permission from AlterNet
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) lost her most senior staffer on Friday after she made a scene on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
NBC News reported Greene "instigated a shouting match with a group of House Democrats who were holding an event outside the U.S. Capitol on Friday."Greene screamed that Democrats support "murder" for supporting abortion rights.
Following the incident, Greene announced that her chief of staff had "advised" her that he would no longer be working in her office.
"I want to thank my Chief of Staff, Patrick Parsons, for helping me take the fight to the Socialist Democrats as I've transitioned into Congress. He's advised me he will be moving back into the political arena to help elect America First conservatives who can fight alongside me," she posted to Twitter.
The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.
