Ilhan Omar challenger outlines what she believes is at stake in 2024

Having courted all sorts of controversies throughout her time in Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) may be poised to face one of her toughest opponents yet while she seeks re-election next fall, namely, Republican journalist Dalia al-Aqidi, as the New York Post details.

In a recent op-ed for the Post, al-Aqidi spelled out precisely what she believes is at risk in the coming election and why she believes Omar – and those like her – must go down to defeat.

Uniquely qualified

Though Omar has often touted her unique background as a Somali refugee in her campaigns for Congress, al-Aqidi has a similarly compelling story to tell, as she notes in the op-ed.

“I was a young journalist when I immigrated to the U.S. in 1993,” she said, adding, “Growing up in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the idea that I would one day one for office in America never occurred to me.”

The Republican hopeful went on, “But I took my oath of U.S. citizenship seriously, which also meant becoming part of America's rich cultural fabric and giving back to the country I am lucky to call home.”

Minnesota awakening

After moving from Washington, D.C. to Minneapolis, al-Aqidi fell in love with her new hometown but began to notice a worsening decline that was only exacerbated by pandemic lockdowns and the racial unrest that followed the police-involved death of George Floyd in 2020.

“Suddenly Hollywood, the financial sector, and academia were tripping over themselves to promote social justice causes like Black Lives Matter, an outwardly Marxist and antisemitic organization,” she observed, also lamenting that “those who resisted were condemned as racist.”

It was “vogueish fads like identity and intersectionality” not “intelligence or intent” that suddenly mattered, creating a scenario al-Aqidi believed needed to change – and fast.

Taking aim at Omar

Pointing a finger of blame at the incumbent Fifth District representative al-Aqidi declared, “[f]ew proved better at harnessing these grievances than my congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, a Black, female, Muslim, immigrant – the Holy Grail of intersectionality.”

Blasting Omar for labeling police as “oppressors, al-Aqidi notes that she enjoys similar identity politics bona fides to the liberal firebrand, saying, “I should point out that I have the same intersectional resume as Omar except I am an Arab, while she considers herself 'brown.'”

Highlighting what she sees as Omar's disregard for “kitchen table issues” such as crime, economics, and education, al-Aqidi goes on to slam the congresswoman's apparent determination to “fundamentally transform America in her own antisemitic, Marxist vision.

“I'm running for Congress because if we don't confront and dismantle this way of thinking,” al-Aqidi declared, “America as we know will cease to exist,” and hopefully her message and detailed proposals are heard loud and clear by enough concerned Minnesotans to effect real change next November.