Every once in a while, I like to go on an online rant. I'll tweet out a bunch of tweets just to clear my head and make myself feel better about whatever is troubling me. It's not a common occurrence, but it is one way to work out my thoughts. Now imagine making a living off of your feelings and opinions by ranting to a camera and broadcasting it online. Now imagine making it your political opinions.
If you don't know who Tomi Lahren is, let me inform you. She is a 24 year-old from South Dakota, born from a military family. She attended the University of Las Vegas, studying broadcast journalism. She is the host on her own show, Tomi, on TheBlaze as a conservative political commentator. She has appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah as well as The O'Reilly Factor. Her claim to fame is that she has debunked the idea that all Republicans are just "rich, old, white men" because she was born into a middle-class family, is young and pretty, but is also white.
Lahren has received much backlash for many of the comments she has made. One example is her comparison of the Black Lives Matter movement to the KKK. Also, she has attacked Beyonce's famous superbowl performance from 2016, saying that the show 'ripped off a historical band aid' on America's civil rights movement by paying homage to the Black Panthers. Also, one of her most viral videos insults the Obama administration for their "half-way, half-baked, tip-toe, be-friendly-to-Jihadis mentality." As an avid supporter of our military, she has called out Colin Kaepernick more times than I can count for disrespecting our troops by kneeling for the national anthem. She also regularly attacks feminists, too.
Of course, she has plenty of fans, but it seems like the trend for liberals, and even conservatives that don't support her rants, to hate and attack the young woman and what she stands for.
Recently, the rapper Wale mentioned her in a new "diss track" called Smile - well, kind of. He raps "Maybe I should meet Tomi Lahren, I'll Lauryn Hill her/ Train her; she miseducated anyway/ Prolly hate the color of my face." But, he pronounces her name more like "Tammy Lauren" much to her annoyance. Instead of brushing it off and ignoring the diss, Tomi tweeted and tweeted and Instagram'd about it more than the average person would.
Is the hate aimed at Tomi Lahren justified? I think in some ways, yes. I agree that no person deserves to be attacked for their political stance because we have the right to our opinions.
The problem with Tomi Lahren is that she abuses and overuses her platform. She boasts about speaking the unfiltered and brutal "truth" about political issues, but when watching one of her videos or reading her tweets, it is clear that she uses anger and highly-charged emotion to appeal to her audience. She is also a big fan of the ad hominem, or personally attacking people for their views when she constantly preaches about our first amendment rights that our troops fight to protect every day.
I, personally, cannot get through one of her online rants. I see her extreme patriotism as a huge misunderstanding of what America is and has become. Sure, we can be considered a "great country" because of our constitutional rights we are given, like our "freedom of speech," but while it seems like we have made progress in so many social issues, we have really only become more politically correct. Many Americans are still intolerant under the surface. Tomi Lahren herself may even come off that way to some.
I think that as the general public, we need to stop giving Lahren so much attention. People are busy making memes of her and insulting and attacking her, but really, we shouldn't give her the publicity at all. Like they say, any publicity is good publicity. Let's hope that she moves to Fox News where she belongs and from there, she can preach to her desired audience about her views that the rest of us are tired of hearing about.
