Tucker Carlson: "Ilhan Omar has contempt for the United States"

[JA]

Omar doesn't have contempt for America, she has contempt for America's shortcomings when compared to its promises and ideals. Since the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, we have struggled to reconcile our awful actions with our noble principles. We proclaimed a desire to make this into a land of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for all, yet had a large segment of our population enslaved on the basis of their skin color, committed genocide against the natives of this land, engaged in pogroms and episodes of mass racial and xenophobic hysteria, conducted widespread human rights violations during numerous wars (several of them being entirely unjustified), and repeatedly denied equal opportunity to minorities (gender, sexual, religious, racial). Today, among our existing flaws, we can count the entrapment of asylum seekers in cages and other appalling living conditions (including women and children), denying them access to basic hygiene, letting them slip into sex trafficking, and allowing public employees to emotionally, physically, sexually, and verbally abuse those in their care.

Omar grew up with an image of America as a promised land - one more exceptional because of its noble principles than any other in the world (regardless of how right or wrong this conception of America is). Her outrage, just like the outrage of countless other Americans and others around the world, is at America's continued failure to live up to its noble principles because of the utter ignorance and depravity of certain segments of its population that enable our leadership to get away with shameful actions. She's right to be outraged and contemptuous of those things - as should we all.