Right wingers, Trump supporters, and 2nd Amendment patriots have a pretty new face to help them in spreading their agenda this election. Welcome Tomi Lahren to the stage. Tomi is a 24-year-old conservative political commentator who hosts a show in her namesake, Tomi, for TheBlaze. More than likely you have seen a video of her on your Facebook feed spewing out hatred towards Colin Kaepernick or screaming about Benghazi. It is honestly hard to take her seriously, but this is not something any sane American should just shrug off. Tomi's words are dangerous and she is energizing people online in hopes of turning people into mindless voters this November with her right-wing propaganda.
Tomi's words aren't just dangerous, they are also effective in attracting people who are too fed up to do research themselves. She is racking up thousands of views on YouTube and her videos are being distributed all across social media. But just how dangerous are her messages? Let's explore some of the outrageous things she has conjured up.
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Remember when five police officers were killed during demonstrations in Dallas? Rather than just expressing how terrible this event was, she turned it into around to put blame on the Black Lives Matters movement who she likened to the KKK. Her frustrations were poured out on her Twitter account, though she deleted the post pretty quickly after the controversy it sparked. Luckily, Twitter users and media outlets caught the tweet before it was deleted. Tomi may have apologized, but this is the sort of talk that replicates easily in her viewers, especially with such mixed opinions with the Black Lives Matter movement today.
One of her more famous moments was her response to Colin Kaepernick choosing to kneel during the national anthem. More of a rant than a response, she received 66 million views since the event in August. Unfortunately for the public, she is attempting to be informative and her viewers bought it. It is difficult to write my synopsis of her Final Thoughts on Colin Kaepernick, but I'll try my best to display somewhat of a recap.
Between her moments of trying to hold it all in and calling Kaepernick "Bud", she complains about how the First Amendment protects his rights to be a "whiny, indulgent, attention-seeking cry baby. It also protects my rights to shred you for it." It's true, she can say whatever she wants to say about Kaepernick under the First Amendment, but it seems she gives our freedom of speech a one way ticket that only allows it to be used the "correct way", which in her mind is in praise of our nation and completely denying there to be any issues. She also likes to point out that our national anthem and flag are a symbol for those who fought and died for our country. Take the flag and anthem as you will, but in no way does it hold the same symbolic meaning to every single person in this country. By forcing the meaning of the flag on a nation's citizens, it leaves no room to discuss what the flag really means and what our nation should stand for. Colin also never stated that his complaints are with white people, it is with the nation as a whole. Tomi flipped the narrative to be about white vs. black when it never had to be. She also is very comfortable in telling Colin that he has done nothing in this country, but the real question I would love to ask Tomi is this: What have you done for this country?
Tomi may like to run her mouth and she may believe that she is helping us by propagating conservative ideals, but in fact she is spreading the same sort of lies that presidential hopeful Donald Trump and his supporters use to stir up emotion in the American people. She seems to forget that she grew up in a white, middle-class household where she was sheltered from issues that other people in this country face. This outright denial of issues that we still haven't solved leads to her blindly posting more content in the hopes of identifying with an audience who is just as upset as her and who come from the same sort of background.
I could go on about how she defended Donald Trump over his comments that he claimed was just "locker room talk", rants about liberals and how Barack Obama has ruined our nation, or her blatant disregard for black communities and their issues while promoting her views on how Black Lives Matter is fighting a war against cops.
You see, the video about Colin Kaepernick wasn't just about Colin Kaepernick and not standing for the flag. This was about shutting down any argument that black people are still the victims of systemic racism and de facto discrimination. This video is about angry white people, coming from the perspective of white America. Her success is relative to Trump's success in his presidential campaign. People are mad and feel like they are being attacked simply because black people want true equality in this country. This equality reaches past the 15th Amendment, Brown vs. Board of Education, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Racism is still alive today, both systemically and in our citizens. She is dangerous because her outright denial of this being an issue has empowered people to act irrationally and to believe whatever she yells about in front of a camera.
So just as Tomi Lahren does, I would love to give her some final thoughts.
Check your privilege. Just because you had it so well off and can speak behind a desk to millions of people online does not mean you speak for our nation. You fear change because it doesn't always benefit you. If you truly cared for our nation, for that flag and our national anthem, you would be using your power and privilege to empower everyone, not just those at the top who don't struggle like so many do in this nation. You would promote equality rather than putting those down who have formed a movement stronger than your biased words. History tends to repeat itself, and time and time again we have seen those fighting for real change prevail over those who step on it. Your logic is flawed and your interpretation of respect is built on your own egocentrism. Fortunately for us, it is not hard to understand that you are a poor example of American patriotism and you don't get to speak for our country. Good night and take care.
