Congress Just Threw Ilhan Omar Off the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Squad Went

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at RVIVR.

We don’t really need to do too much commentary here because what you’ll see below speaks for itself.

Instead, we’ll just set this up. Fox News reported:

The House voted Thursday to kick Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a decision that Republicans vowed to take because of Omar’s history of anti-Semitic and anti-American remarks.

The resolution was approved in a 218-211 vote after a heated debate in which Democrats accused Republicans of racism and hypocrisy and claimed that the GOP is only policing Democrats for questionable behavior. Omar and several other Democrats openly accused Republicans of racism.

“I am Muslim, I am an immigration, and interestingly, from Africa,” Omar said. “Is anyone surprised that I am being targeted? Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak about American foreign policy, or that they see me as a powerful voice that needs to be silenced.”

That wasn’t convincing, obviously, and it shouldn’t have been. Omar, who almost surely broke U.S. immigration laws by marrying her brother for a green card, is the most consistently anti-American politician in the country. She’s an utterly ungrateful immigrant who attacks our country and our allies, excuses terrorism, and nonchalantly dismisses our national interests.

Not to mention she’s the most virulent anti-Semite in American politics.

Anyway, when the vote was made, following a precedent set when Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats threw Marjorie Taylor Greene off all her committee assignments because they said she was a QAnon follower, something there was fairly shaky evidence of, Omar’s fellow left-wing, anti-American nutters lost their minds on the House floor.

Rashida Tlaib:

Democrat Rashida Tlaib, while embarrassingly screaming on live television:

Republicans “are showing who [they] all are” by condemning Ilhan Omar’s antisemitic remarks and blocking her from the Foreign Affairs Committee. pic.twitter.com/oFycCxAQRn

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 2, 2023

Eric Swalwell:

Hey MAGA-GOP— take a look in your own damn mirror before you come here looking for Anti-Semitism. pic.twitter.com/0vHv09i6QS

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 2, 2023

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

Hey MAGA-GOP— take a look in your own damn mirror before you come here looking for Anti-Semitism. pic.twitter.com/0vHv09i6QS

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 2, 2023

You’ll notice, besides the over-the-top emoting that masks the utterly ridiculous statements being made, the slavish insistence on equating the upholding of standards with bigotry and racism.

Ilhan Omar is black and Muslim, so she can say and do the most flagrantly unacceptable things, and if you oppose them, you’re a racist.

What’s encouraging about this is that it isn’t working on the House GOP majority. It has no effect. They knew this was coming and they voted Omar off that committee anyway.

That’s a good thing because it means one of the Democrats’ chief weapons they’ve wielded horribly irresponsibly over the past 15–20 years is no longer potent. Republicans have spent several political lifetimes cowering to this sort of emotionalist blackmail, but, under McCarthy’s leadership, it’s beginning to look like they just don’t give a damn about it anymore.

And the implications of this, if it hardens into a pattern, are groundbreaking.

We’re seeing cancel culture abate because the people who’ve been targeted by cancel mobs who act precisely like the morons you’ve seen above, with over-the-top screeching condemnations for behavior that at the end of the day shouldn’t offend a well-adjusted human being in most cases, have increasingly decided, “Nope, I’m not going to be canceled by you today” and have leaned in and defended themselves rather than apologizing.

And now, as The Squad and their fellow travelers like Swalwell are attempting to cancel the Republican majority, we’re seeing that it doesn’t work on the House floor.

The GOP is standing its ground on a matter not just of partisanship — if Marjorie Taylor Greene isn’t good enough to sit on any committees, then Swalwell and Adam Schiff certainly don’t belong on Intel and Omar simply cannot be on Foreign Affairs — but of principle and the basic standards we should expect out of Congress. If the voters in some of these districts want to send manifestly unfit people to Congress, then they can pay for that with the GOP keeping them off the committees they really, really shouldn’t be on.

You’re probably thinking that this is very basic, easy stuff and it shouldn’t be reason for rejoicing, and that’s a fair statement. But here’s the thing — they’re doing the basics that haven’t been done for a while, and they’re weathering the storm of idiocy they’re getting for those basics.

That test passed, we can move on to something a bit meatier.

The debt ceiling fight comes next. Obviously, the debt ceiling is going to be raised, but the question is what concessions McCarthy can wring out of the Senate and the Biden administration for it. To get any will take a demonstration of political will.

A House willing to throw Omar off Foreign Affairs might have enough sand to hold firm and get some meaningful spending cuts in return for a small debt ceiling increase, and then more cuts in return for another increase later, and so on until it isn’t necessary to raise the debt ceiling. A House unwilling to dump Omar? Not a chance.

So we’ll see, but this is a small, but nonetheless significant win today. It’s worth noting.

Read more from RVIVR here.