Loyalty can elevate or enslave. Placed in truth, it anchors. Placed in tribe, it distorts. Though I have known both, I abandoned the latter and embraced the former. That is why when I look at Ilhan Omar and Charlie Kirk, I see two distinct moral universes.
Charlie’s foundation was faith in Christ and country, in family and the free market. His faith was that America embodies true freedom and dignity because our country was founded on biblical principles—principles that demand that power be checked and the weak be protected.
Ilhan Omar’s foundation rests on three pillars: clan, Islamism, and leftism. Each demands loyalty not to principle but to faction. Each reduces life to a struggle for dominance.
I know Omar’s world. It is a place without law, where men with swords and guns decide the fate of neighbors, where girls are cut to mark them as pure, where bribes stand in for justice. These are not random misfortunes, but the dynamics of the system Omar embodies. It incentivizes and rewards absolute and unchecked power—even at the expense of life, limb, and property.
The foundation of Omar’s world is the clan. From birth, children are taught to display unquestioning loyalty to their group, to obey a rigid code of honor and shame without question. Loyalty to kin is praised above all else. The cost of such loyalty, however, is naked, irrational hostility to all outsiders. Distrust, concealment, and perceived persecution feed collective paranoia, and zero-sum thinking rules daily life. Lying and cheating are not sins if they serve the group.
Layered on that is Islamism. The headscarf Omar wears is not a symbol of modesty but a political marker. Her rhetoric on Jews and Israel follows the Muslim Brotherhood script: condemn Israel at every turn, blame Jews for every setback, and treat unbelievers as entirely expendable. There is no depth, only disdain.
And then comes today’s prevailing Leninist leftism. Omar merges the absolutism of clan and the dogmatism of Islamism with the mantras of Marxism: take from the rich and hand to the poor, sanctify grievance, and frame history as an endless struggle between identity groups. But here lies the irony. She now enjoys the wealth of the very system she supposedly despises. She is not the barefoot refugee she once was. She is a multi-millionaire, living in luxury, lecturing Americans about redistribution while securing her own fortune. Her maxims remain Marxist, but her lifestyle is decidedly capitalist.
Charlie Kirk refuted the identity politics of Ilhan Omar and called out Islamism. Instead of fantasizing about socialist utopias, he urged young people to marry, stay faithful, raise children, and build more than they inherited. He believed America’s greatness came not from grievance but from gratitude. He stated his values openly and treated his opponents with respect. For Charlie, faith was not tribal. And he believed wholeheartedly that the universal truths on which America was based were available to all.
This is why Omar’s response to Charlie matters. She lied about him. She smeared and slandered him. When he was killed, she mocked him with grave-dancing remarks. For her, these tactics are permitted. For him, they never would have been. His moral universe did not allow it. Hers encourages it.
Clan, Islamism, leftism: each is a cage. Together they form a prison of mind and soul. Ilhan Omar is the elected, walking, talking example of this blighted mindset.
This is why I reject moral relativism. This moral posture was clearly demonstrated by the journalists who allowed Omar to hurl false accusations at Charlie Kirk. It breeds the racism of low expectations, which is something Kirk also called out. For it is taboo in leftist culture for white girls in the media to ask a black girl with a headscarf to support her statements with some facts. Moral relativism is the false comfort blanket of the liberal West. It pretends all cultures, all creeds, and all systems are equal.
They are not.
Opportunists like Omar exploit this weakness. They demand rights without accepting obligations. They demand protection while scorning the principles that grant it.
The vast differences between Charlie and Omar lead to a larger question: What does citizenship mean? Citizenship was once thought to be a covenant. It meant shifting loyalty away from old allegiances—to foreign leaders, foreign ideologies, foreign gods—and giving it wholly to America. It meant embracing the Constitution and the creed of liberty under law. It was a privilege to be earned, not a welfare card to be handed out.
Omar wants the rights of citizenship but not the responsibilities. She has never spoken with outrage about the atrocities committed against Christians in Somalia or across Africa. She has not condemned the violence of Islamist rule. She has learned instead how to draw from America without giving back. She takes, but she does not adopt. She enriches herself while preaching envy.
This is not about denaturalizing or deporting her. It is about recognizing that she should never have been granted citizenship in the first place. Her life is a warning of what happens when citizenship is treated not as a covenant but as an entitlement.
Charlie Kirk stood for honor, sacrifice, and loyalty to country. Omar stands for deceit, division, and loyalty to faction. He built his message on faith and family. She builds hers on resentment and rupture. He called Americans to unite and find some common ground. She divides and drives her followers toward malice and mistrust.
I fled the warped world Omar actively endorses. I chose the world Charlie defended. And I say with genuine urgency: America must learn the difference.
Citizenship must again be tied to allegiance—not to bloodline or to imported ideologies. To belong here should mean to believe in what America is. Without that, our nation will not endure.