Ilhan inquiries

We reported on Power Line earlier this week that Ilhan Omar departed for London with husband Tim Mynett on Sunday after getting booed off the Target Center stage Saturday evening. The political reporters at the Star Tribune are still churning out copy and sending out their daily Hot Dish newsletter, but the news about Omar is missing. I wrote the Star Tribune Hot Dish account this morning:

I’m a faithful reader of the Hot Dish newsletter and a contributor to the site Power Line. I’ve been writing about the entirely Somali Target Center crowd that hooted Ilhan Omar down when she took the stage with Suldan Seeraar at the Somali Week concert event Saturday night and then blew town for London the following day. The video has gone viral and the news has been covered on outlets including the Daily Mail and the New York Post. Is it not news in your world? I would be grateful for any thoughts you might be willing to share.

As always, I will post any response received verbatim.

Our coverage of Omar over the past few years has been assisted by invaluable Somali friends. I asked the one who alerted me to the Target Center event and forwarded the photo of Omar boarding the plane at MSP for London how she interpreted the hostility of the hometown Somali crowd to Omar on Saturday night. My friend responded (lightly edited):

It has taken a while for Ilhan’s massage to get out to the Somali community. She used them as a stepping stone to achieve her political ambitions. Ilhan has repeatedly said Somalis didn’t vote for her and that she represents progressives. She has said that repeatedly on several videos.

Somalis know how hard they worked to elect her. She has fought against policies that stabilize Somalia and sure has not done much for the community. They thought she would be their champion until they figured out she’s all about her progressive people only. They feel neglected after doing all the work and that is the bottom line.

Implicit in my friend’s remarks is the cultural conservatism of the Somali community. It has taken me a while to understand the tribal divisions in the community as well as its hostility to the fringe-left line that Omar peddles. Unfortunately, Omar’s lunatic leftism faithfully represents the current American mode of assimilation.

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