{"id":33365,"date":"2026-10-15T18:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T18:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=33365"},"modified":"2026-10-15T18:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T18:01:11","slug":"trump-is-targeting-ilhan-omar-wheres-the-elite-media-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=33365","title":{"rendered":"Trump Is Targeting Ilhan Omar. Where\u2019s the Elite Media Outrage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n
\n \"Representative
\n Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, during a news conference ahead of the State of the Union address in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24, 2026.<\/span>\u00a0Photo: Daniel Heuer\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n \"\"\/<\/p>\n

Adam Johnson is co-host of the Citations Needed<\/a> podcast and author of \u201cHow to Sell a Genocide: The Media\u2019s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza,\u201d which is available now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Agents from the<\/span> Department of Homeland Security on Monday raided the Washington, D.C., home of Rep. Ilhan Omar ostensibly in connection with a criminal investigation into her childhood immigration to the United States. The raid was signed off on by a federal judge, apparently after a \u201cback-and-forth<\/a>\u201d with federal law enforcement, and has been condemned<\/a> by civil rights groups<\/a> as highly suspect. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump\u2019s targeting of Omar escalated even further<\/a> as federal agents issued subpoenas to many of her relatives, including her sister Sahra Noor, and the Wall Street Journal reported the Trump administration\u2019s ultimate goal<\/a> is to strip Omar of her citizenship and deport her. This obscene abuse of power comes after years<\/a> of Trump targeting Omar with threats, racist smears<\/a>, intimidation, and calls for her deportation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But with rare exception, the response from the mainstream media\u2019s pundit class has been largely muted, with the vast bulk of the coverage coming in the form of he said\/she said, down-the-middle reporting. This is in stark contrast with how elite opinion-shapers responded with uniform outrage in the days after Trump\u2019s also dubious raid on John Bolton, his former national security adviser and a neoconservative commentator, in August 2025. Both are part of a consistent pattern of Trump weaponizing the Department of Justice<\/a> to attack his perceived enemies, yet only the latter solicited widespread media condemnation.<\/p>\n

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The very day of the Bolton raid, we saw scathing editorials from the New York Times<\/a>, Washington Post<\/a>, and Wall Street Journal<\/a>. Over the next week, each of these newspapers also published separate pieces from their opinion staff opposing<\/a> the raid, casting doubt<\/a> on its legitimacy, and otherwise leveling outrage at the obvious power grab<\/a>. The raid was explicitly condemned in Politico<\/a>, The New Yorker<\/a>, and The Atlantic<\/a>, which published<\/a> four different<\/a> indignant columns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

As a rule for U.S. media, the consistent application of principle takes a back seat to class solidarity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

The raid on Omar\u2019s home has thus far received zero of the above media interventions. No editorials, no opinion columns in the Times, Post, or Journal; no preening in The New Yorker or Politico or Atlantic about the erosion of \u201crule of law.\u201d The Atlantic did run an article<\/a> on the Omar raid but it was equivocal and Both Sides in its tone. (A similar Both Sides column<\/a> The Atlantic published about the Bolton raid was not included in our list of opinion pieces expressing outrage over the Bolton raid.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is in stark contrast to the breathless tone of outrage leveled at Trump when his DOJ targeted Bolton last year. \u201cIt is clear that Mr. Trump and his appointees,\u201d the Times wrote in August 2025, \u201care perverting the justice system to serve their political interests and intimidate their critics.\u201d \u201cFBI raid targeting Bolton crosses a line in the Trump revenge campaign,\u201d proclaimed the Trump ally<\/a>\u2013owned <\/a>Washington Post. Even the right-wing WSJ editorial board, typically a staunch backer of Trump, got in on the fervor under the headline \u201cTrump\u2019s Vendetta Campaign Targets John Bolton,\u201d which made clear \u201cthat second-term success for the President includes retribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Journal not only didn\u2019t publish an editorial or column opposing the Omar raid as they did with Bolton, they published a column by assistant editorial page editor James Freeman endorsing it and using tabloid innuendo to cast aspersions<\/a> on Omar. <\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say the mainstream press hasn\u2019t reported<\/em> on the Omar raid. The New York Times<\/a>, Washington Post<\/a> and Wall Street Journal<\/a> all ran articles, and analysis<\/a>, on the raid, but \u2014 unlike with the Bolton case \u2014 they have published no opinions expressing outrage and demanding recourse for the obvious authoritarian power grab.<\/p>\n

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The reasons for this glaring discrepancy are likely many: Omar is Black<\/a> and Muslim<\/a>, Bolton is white and not. Omar is a woman, Bolton is a man. Omar is considered \u201cfar left,\u201d Bolton is squarely in the center-right of elite Washington consensus. Omar is a harsh critic<\/a> of Israel<\/a>, and Bolton is among its most overtly and bloodthirsty champions<\/a>. The reality is it\u2019s almost certainly a combination of all these factors<\/a>. Writ large, Bolton is a member of The Club, and Omar isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

A similar dynamic of asymmetric In-Group vs. Out-Group outrage could be seen during the early months<\/a> of Trump\u2019s first<\/a>\u00a0term when<\/a> the media<\/a> spilled oceans<\/a> of ink lamenting<\/a> Trump\u2019s determination to intimidate the press and lock up reporters. Yet this same press almost entirely ignored<\/a> his DOJ\u2019s absurd prosecution of two independent reporters, Aaron Cantu and Alexei Wood, for covering the January 20 unrest<\/a> during his 2016 inauguration \u2014 a case that was found to have no merit. Ultimately, the city of Washington, D.C., was, despite the lack of any sustained media attention, forced to settle with a payout<\/a> to the persecuted reporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a rule for U.S. media, the consistent application of principle \u2014 as high-minded and lofty as they may appear \u2014 takes a back seat to class solidarity. Bolton is a corporate media figure, a national security elite, a hawk, and a committed institutionalist. He is, in other words, one of them<\/em>. Omar is none of these things. As a direct result, her outrageous persecution by Trump is noted and perhaps critiqued around the margins but is not a source of widespread, sustained outrage and condemnation. This distinction is reserved, very clearly, for those in The Club.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

#Trump #Targeting #Ilhan #Omar #Wheres #Elite #Media #Outrage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat fr… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[246],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}