I must admit, I find few people in government more loathsome than Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, the U.S. Representative for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district.
However, being the Legal Insurrection’s designated “book reviewer” due to my serious book addiction, I was asked to check out Benjamin Weingarten’s American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of The Democratic Party.
Usually, I treat anything dealing with Omar as I would a coronavirus-infused tissue. However, I went ahead and took the plunge, delighted with the solid writing and the organization of the extensive material Weingarten has gathered on the congresswoman.
Weingarten is a senior contributor to The Federalist, as well as the founder of ChangeUp Media (a media consulting firm dedicated to helping individuals and institutions advance the principles of individual liberty and limited government). Clearly, he has called upon that experience to take the first in-depth look at Omar’s entire history and current career. This way, Americans are more informed about the origins of her social justice views and how she tries to implement those policies as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Congressional Progressive Caucus whip.
As I am a student of Egypt, my favorite section of the book is the first, which traces family’s roots in the Horn of Africa and to find the origins of the Islamist-Marxist dogma she embraces. From listening to Omar, one would think her family was poor and homeless in Somali.
It turns out Omar was born to Somali political nobility.
It is understandable that an immigrant might at first feel alienated in a distant land with a foreign culture. But in the case of Rep. Omar, the challenge may have been particularly acute for a reason that has gone largely overlooked. Setting aside her disappointment in America given her expectations, and the identity-based lens through which she came to view her experiences so negatively, Omar may have been miffed because, by her own account, she had come from an affluent and evidently politically connected Somali family.In the parlance of her progressive faithful, she was privileged….Omar received schooling in Islamic studies from a young age. Her family had sufficient food such that it could afford to share with the poor beggars who congregated outside its grounds. Given this comfortable upbringing in an undeveloped country reliant on foreign aid, it is evident that Omar’s family was part of Somalia’s ruling class prior to its descent into chaos and war in 1991. Left undiscussed when Omar has broached her background is the nature of the regime her family served.
Here is the ideology of the dictator Omar’s family served, quoted by Weingarten from The New York Times in 1977. which formed the foundation of her worldview:
President Siad Barre has often insisted that Marx and Mohammed are not only compatible but also complimentary, that the religious asceticism of Islam can combine with the concept of mass discipline inherent in ‘scientific socialism’ to forge a strong national will and lift the country from the ranks of the 25 poorest nations.
The book is broken into several sections that explore her background and belief system to impose a toxic, identity politics-based agenda. In addition to the thorough look at her personal history, Weingarten demonstrates that she is a symbol and a symptom of the super-woke progressive agenda, and describes the threat to national security that she poses.
Weingarten shows clearly that the presidency of Barack Obama paved the way for Omar, and the rest of the squad, to assume influential roles in the Democratic Party and to continue transforming it. Weingarten also connects the links between Omar and a variety of domestic Islamist groups with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism and documents her significant relationships with foreign government figures that have a shared affinity for Islamism.
Weingarten was interviewed by Laura Ingraham when his book was officially released:
I give the book 4.5 stars out of 5. Weingarten packs a lot of useful information into straightforward and concise writing. He provides extensive quotes and offers plenty of links to the source material.
However, I found the subject matter highly disagreeable. Hopefully, Weingarten will find a more uplifting politician to write about for his next book.
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