(HuffPost) President Donald Trump’s decision to vilify Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has had real, harmful effects not just on the first-year congresswoman, but on Muslim candidates running for public office at the state and local levels as well.
In March, Omar faced significant criticism ― including from members of her own party ― for comments about Israel, which they said played into anti-Semitic tropes. She apologized, but Trump and his allies used the dust-up to further paint her and the Democratic Party as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. In April, Trump tweeted a video that dishonestly purported to show Omar downplaying 9/11. He also continued to characterize her as anti-Semitic in tweets and speeches.
Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, saw a rise in death threats following all the Trump attacks. Her office said she “receives daily death threats ― almost all of them threatening to kill her because of her religion.”
The fallout didn’t just end there.
