The Tale of the Tweet

Members of Congress have a duty to respond to the President’s explicit attack today.@IlhanMN’s life is in danger. For our colleagues to be silent is to be complicit in the outright, dangerous targeting of a member of Congress.

We must speak out.

“First they came...” pic.twitter.com/ygOX1vhE9j

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 12, 2019

One of these things....

The president’s actions are an incitement to violence against Rep. Omar and Muslim Americans across the country. There is a cost and consequence to this rhetoric. Members of both parties must stand together and condemn the president's dangerous actions. pic.twitter.com/GV5l2qLf0Q

— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) April 13, 2019

...is not like the others.

Ilhan Omar is a leader with strength and courage. She won't back down to Trump's racism and hate, and neither will we. The disgusting and dangerous attacks against her must end.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 13, 2019

The President is inciting violence against a sitting Congresswoman—and an entire group of Americans based on their religion. It's disgusting. It's shameful. And any elected leader who refuses to condemn it shares responsibility for it.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 13, 2019

For two years, this President has used the most powerful platform in the world to sow hate & division. He's done it again. Putting the safety of a sitting member of Congress @IlhanMN at risk & vilifying a whole religion is beyond the pale. I'll be blunt — we must defeat him.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) April 13, 2019

The threats against the life of @IlhanMN make clear what is at stake if we fail to to do this, and to beat back hate in all all its forms.

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) April 13, 2019

President Trump's inflammatory and dangerous rhetoric towards Ilhan Omar is jeopardizing her safety. He is deliberately putting her and all Muslim Americans in harm's way.

— Jay Inslee (@JayInslee) April 13, 2019

I am grateful for @IlhanMN's courage and leadership and I stand with her - and with others targeted by the President's anti-Muslim rhetoric.

— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) April 13, 2019

Someone has already been charged with a serious threat on Congresswoman Omar’s life. The video the President chose to send out today will only incite more hate. You can disagree with her words—as I have done before—but this video is wrong. Enough.

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) April 13, 2019

Sen. Klobuchar's response bothers me, because Rep. Omar's words in this video are no more an accurate representation of what she said than the Project Veritas videos were ever documentary, rather than deceptively edited.

As a Senator who represents 9/11 victims, I can't accept any minimizing of that pain. But Trump's dangerous rhetoric against @IlhanMN is disgusting. It’s a false choice to suggest we can’t fight terrorism and reject Islamophobic hate at once—a president should do both.

— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) April 13, 2019

Nancy Pelosi is not running for President, but she did respond in the same medium:

The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence. The President shouldn’t use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack.

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) April 13, 2019

I was not expecting her to condemn Trump in the harshest possible language, but this is a bit anodyne.

I understand where some of these people are coming from, but I have to say O'Rourke gets it, and Buttigieg runs a close second.  Trump ran on "Make America Great Again," but he won on racism and resentment.  The winning strategy now is represented by O'Rourke and Buttigieg.  Some of these response (like Castro's, who I like but not as Presidential timber) are a bit too aimed at Trump, which comes too close to wrestling with the pig:  you get dirty, and the pig likes it.  O'Rourke scares Trump precisely because he can't get a handle on him like he could with Clinton, or wants to with Biden.  Buttigieg is, I think the same problem for Trump.