Why is President Trump focusing on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashid Tlaib. Axios/AP.

As you are almost certainly aware, President Trump is in a major feud with a group of four congresswomen. Dubbed "the squad" by supporters and critics alike, they are Aleandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Ilhan Omar, Rashid Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. They are by far the most leftist members of congress and are open socialist. I consider them to be racist as well, but that's more debatable. What isn't debatable is that these women are media darlings and have a disproportionate amount of power on the hill.  

Trump has made some veiled and not so veiled mentions of these women and has been highly critical Ilhan Omar has gotten the most of it with President Trump saying that if she hates America so much she should go back to Somalia, fix it, and then she can lecture the United States about our government. 

The media reaction to this was very predictable. They are calling President Trump racist, which he isn't, and the statements to be out of line, which they aren't. The media, the blue checkmarks on Twitter, the Democrats and Trump's GOP enemies have all weighed in and attacked him for the remarks.

I'm going to go on record on saying that President Trump is spot on with his criticism. There is something disgusting about 1st and 2nd generation immigrants attacking the country that took them in. Ilhan Omar in particular was given a massive 2nd chance and if she was still living in Somalia she'd essentially be in a living hell. Somalia has been a basket case of war, human rights violations and terrorism for decades now. Even the worst city in America is safer and has better government than Somalia.

And it has very little to do with race. Clearly it is "the squad's" politics that is pissing everyone off, not their race. I don't care if someone is white, black, Asian or Hispanic, if you come here and just attack our government and our culture, why should you even stay? 

On first glance the timing seems pretty bad. AOC and Nancy Pelosi were in a very public feud where AOC pretty much called Pelosi racist. I'm no fan of Pelosi and she is many things but I don't see her as a racist. It's just what this group does when anyone criticizes them. Anyone who disagrees with them is racist. Pelosi wasn't standing for it, which I actually give her some credit for and the feud threatened to damage party unity. 

The feud had blown up but then Trump chimed in. Pelosi has changed her tune and, along with many other Democrats including all who are running for president have now defended "the squad" from President Trump. Now they are hitched together instead of fighting each other. 

And I think that is exactly what President Trump wants. Why? Recently an internal Democrat polling result was leaked to the Axios news site. The poll results were shocking. They targeted 1000 swing voters who were white, middle class and did not have a four year college degree. This is the group that gave President Trump the presidency and the group that the Democrats will have to peel back somehow if they are going to win in 2020. 

This poll found that "the squad" and the ideas they represent are hugely unpopular among swing voters. AOC's approval rating was a dismal 22% while Ilhan Omar was at an absolutely shocking 9% approval. And the ideology that these women represent, socialism, was extremely disliked by this group with only 18% approving of it and 69% of them disapproving of the ideology. For comparison, capitalism has a 56%/32% approval and disapproval rating.  

I am sure that the GOP and President Trump's internal polling have similar results. President Trump probably saw those numbers and realized he had a chance to discredit the Democrats by making sure that these women were front and center. They are personally very unpopular and have beliefs that the most important voters do not support. I am sure many of "the squad's" more controversial statements and actions, like the green new deal or the recent attack on an ICE center where the attacker's manifesto matched their rhetoric, would also be horribly unpopular if those questions had been asked. 

Now Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the more reasonable Democrats (only in comparison of course) have had their wagons hitched to AOC and the rest of "the squad". Pelosi either had to defend these women or hang them out to dry. If she did defend them, she ends up defending people and ideas that are hugely unpopular. If not she deepens the civil war between the progressive "woke" left and the more centrist neoliberal mainstream. 

Hilariously enough President Trump admitted that this is what he was doing with one of his latest tweets, so it's not like I'm pulling this out of thin air. Here's the tweet:

The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four “progressives,” but now they are forced to embrace them. That means they are endorsing Socialism, hate of Israel and the USA! Not good for the Democrats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2019

So, now that we have established that President Trump is playing the Democrats like a fiddle, was it the right choice? I am not sure. The benefits of doing so are pretty obvious. It's a win win for President Trump no matter what the Democrats do.

However, there is a risk of backlash. The media has reached a fever pitch and have declared the President a racist. They would have done so anyways but the utter shrillness and ubiquity of the attack is somewhat disturbing. I worry that people might buy the hype and ignore what President Trump really said and what kind of people "the squad" are. 

This may have already shown up in the polls. President Trump was hovering around 50% on the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, one of the few accurate ones in 2016. In the past few days though it dropped from around 50% to 46% as of today. Of course his fans still love him, polls that target the GOP say that his approval with Republicans is among the best ever, but he needs some of those swing voters and I think the insane media coverage might have an effect.

That said, this may be a short term concern and not a long term one. A few points dip in the polling more than a year away from the election is pretty irrelevant if President Trump can link "the squad" to more mainstream Democrats. Given that the candidates in 2020 race have been jumping off the slippery slope of leftism, the Democratic leadership is going to have to find a way to sell these women and their ideas, and I don't see that working out for them.