Twitter, source of trouble for some politicians
Democratic U.S. Congresswoman Ilan Omar of Minnesota got herself into hot water this week after she sent the following tweets regarding Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy‘s call for her and another Democratic Congresswoman to be admonished over their criticism of Israel:
https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1094747501578633216
https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1094761790595088384
Omar’s tersely expressed view that U.S. support of Israel is only a result of money, and her mention of lobbying group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) in response to the query “who @IlhanMN thinks is paying American politicians to be pro-Israel,” angered a number of Americans. Many of those who were upset (including members of Congress) accused Omar of raising age-old anti-Semitic tropes regarding Jewish money as an instrument of global domination. On Monday, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders called on Omar to apologize for her tweets. Within hours, Omar issued an apology which mentioned “colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes.”
This episode reveals the dangers for elected officials in using Twitter to promote policy. Some office holders might be tempted to treat Twitter casually, to appear to be in personal touch with constituents and supporters. However, Twitter’s short format lends itself to offhand, incomplete remarks that can lead to differing readings at least. We only need to examine Donald Trump‘s tweets to know that they can be extremely unhelpful to a politician. Since we can’t look into Rep. Omar’s heart, we don’t know exactly what her intentions were with her short tweets. But even giving Omar the benefit of the doubt, we can say that, at best, Omar was being flippant. Additionally, Omar took the bait, responding to others’ adversarial tweets in a reflexive way. That’s not a good idea for a government official whose statements on the internet become part of her public policy record.
Moreover, this is not the first time Rep. Omar has had to apologize over anti-Israel tweets. In August 2012, not long after joining Twitter, Omar tweeted:
https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/269488770066313216
In that case, as in the latest episode, Omar used Twitter to send out hyperbolic attacks against Israel, rather than making substantive policy arguments. She also had to apologize for her actions back in 2012. At this point, Rep. Omar runs the risk of creating a narrative about herself as someone who is irresponsible in her public statements, and who then makes more irresponsible statements to feed the narrative. As we have discussed previously, this can be very damaging to a politician. Likewise, Omar also risks turning into a One Note Johnny, seemingly focusing her greatest attentions on bashing Israel, one of America’s staunchest allies, while Americans have many other challenges that we expect our members of Congress to address.
Hopefully, the lesson that Rep. Omar will take from all of this is that Twitter for public officials is a place to be more careful, or sometimes avoid altogether.
Photo by Cambodia4kids.org Beth Canter – California, USA, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/eDgJhM
