Conservatives rightly lambasted Nancy Pelosi for endorsing Ilhan Omar and appearing with her on viral magazine covers, long after Omar had shown her virulently anti-Semitic stripes. But on Wednesday, Joe Biden did something President Trump proved incapable of: rejecting the support of a bigot widely lauded by the populist wing of his party.
Indeed, Trump has offered his effusive praise to two women who just clinched the Republican nominations for their respective congressional districts: QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene and Laura Loomer, the self-described “#ProudIslamophobe.”
Trump offered support on Twitter to both, leaving press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in the lurch. McEnany, for her part, handled the galling de facto endorsements about as well as anyone in her position could without fully throwing her boss under the bus. She argued that Trump’s words of support were routine for primary victors and that he hadn’t done a “deep dive” into either’s past.
Then Trump threw gasoline on the matter, playing dumb at a White House press conference when asked about the violent and frequently anti-Semitic QAnon conspiracy theory and remaining mum on the issue of Loomer as a whole.
.@realDonaldTrump asked about ‘QAnon’ — “They like me” and “love the country” pic.twitter.com/STeZOG1jRa
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) August 19, 2020
The best way to understand Loomer and Greene is to let them speak for themselves.
“There is no moderate form of Islam,” Loomer told the Spectator in the same interview that she claimed Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to hold positions in law enforcement or government. “I don’t care what people think. At the end of the day, I’m right, and it’s not gonna be until one of their daughters or sons or moms or fathers are mowed down by an ISIS terrorist or blown-up in a subway where they’ll realize that I was right.”
For her part, Greene penned an article archived on the WayBack Machine stating that “Saudi Arabia, Rothschild and Soros are the puppet masters that fund this Global Evil. For the first time in history, this triangle of funding has lost one of its sides and is beginning to collapse. The old Saudi Arabia was funding child trafficking, Hillary Clinton, false flags and various other evil activities. The New Saudi Arabia is just taking form as Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, the same King who honored President Trump during his visit, made an abrupt change in the line of succession.”
Indeed, Omar’s “all about the Benjamins” Freudian slips and persistent loathing of Israel almost seem subtle next to Greene’s moronic invocation of anti-Semitic tropes and Loomer’s avowed Islamophobia. If Trump refuses to reverse his absurd support for two bigots unfit for civil circles, let alone the United States Congress, he has no leg to stand on in opposing the Democratic Party’s obeisance to their own superstar bigots.
