If you’re anything like me, you probably have friends blowing up your Facebook feed on an almost hourly basis sharing and liking anything and everything political. If that happens, then I would guess you have seen or heard the rantings of Tomi Lahren.
Frankly, I would be surprised if there were any students on our campus who haven’t heard of her given her recent comments on Colin Kaepernick as well as previous remarks on the Black Lives Matter movement.
But if you haven’t, good for you. Stay away. Her commentary is toxic, and trust me, you aren’t missing out.
Lahren hosts a segment called “Final Thoughts” on Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze,” where she “discusses” current events and hot topics in American politics. She has achieved some slight level of internet (and hard-right-wing) celebrity status through her minutes-long rants about injustices she argues aren’t happening.
For example, she said about Colin Kaepernick’s protest, “[The First Amendment] protects your right to be a whiny, indulgent, attention-seeking crybaby.” She did not stop there. In continuing her rant on the subject, she said, “Aren’t you half-white? Didn’t two white parents adopt you after yours weren’t willing to raise you?”
Somehow for Lahren, having only one parent of color should mitigate his perception of racial injustice in America.
She doesn’t present actual facts, nor does she consult experts on any subject she discusses. Her rhetoric is anger and hatred filled and she doesn’t seem to have a clue how wrong she often is, nor how offensive and truly foolish her words are. So Tomi Lahren reminds me in many ways of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
But frankly, Lahren is just the latest in a long line of conservative commentators who seem to enjoy whipping their followers into a frenzy far more than attempting to present logical, thoughtful or practical solutions to what she perceives to be our problems.
In essence, she’s a problem-creator and a problem herself — not a problem solver.
What alarms me about Lahren is that she is spreading a new “conservative” trend where it seems that facts and statistics don’t matter. Her opinions boil down to hardcore nationalism, irrationally high levels of rage about problems right-wingers often caused and an unwillingness to even consider the idea that Democrats and liberals also love our country and want to work together to fix it.
The only purpose Lahren serves is to incite more anger in her followers.
She and people like her are pot-stirrers. They say controversial, and often delusional, things just to garner a reaction. She’s a waste of your time and a waste of a Facebook “share.”
The point is simple.
To my generation: stop listening to garbage like Lahren and start paying attention to the real problems we face. Be a part of the solution, not the problem. The two sides already disagree on enough issues that if we want to solve them, we don’t need to have someone who knows nothing make us so incredibly unhappy with one another.
As much as people hate the “mainstream media,” in all likelihood, they aren’t lying to you. Even if they put all the spin in the world on their reporting, they are still reporting news. But people like Lahren aren’t. She’s lying to you and giving her warped perspective in the hopes that if she says it with enough incoherent rage, people will keep tuning in. Be smarter than that. Be smarter than Tomi Lahren.
Connor Touhey ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and history
