By Dayib Sh Ahmed
In recent days, the Somali community in Minnesota has been thrust into the center of a vicious and unnecessary political storm. President Donald Trump has once again turned his attention toward Somali Minnesotans, deploying crude attacks rooted in stereotypes, exaggerations, and outright hostility. With every press conference clip, every inflammatory sentence, and every insinuation about “outsiders,” he tries to paint nearly 120,000 Somali Minnesotans as somehow less American, less legitimate, and less deserving of belonging.
But the irony is unavoidable. While Trump lectures and scapegoats an entire immigrant community, he himself has been hit with some of the most severe legal penalties ever imposed on a major public figure in New York. He was barred from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years, while his sons were banned for two. He and the Trump Organization were ordered to pay $354 million—rising to $453.5 million with interest—in one of the harshest corporate fraud penalties in the state’s history. Judge Arthur Engoron concluded that Trump repeatedly violated New York fraud laws by inflating his assets to secure financial advantages he was never entitled to. And this was not an isolated episode; it fits the same long-running pattern seen when he paid $25 million in 2016 to settle claims from victims of his fraudulent Trump University.
And yet, while Trump claims to be a champion against fraud even going so far as scapegoating the Somali American community when convenient his actions tell a radically different story. If he truly cared about stopping fraud, why has he repeatedly protected, pardoned, or granted clemency to some of the most notorious financial criminals in America? The list is long and revealing billionaire Changpeng Zhao ($4 billion), Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht ($200
million), Devon Archer ($184 million), Jason Galanis ($100 million), the BitMEX founders ($150 million), Nikola founder Trevor Milton ($660 million), Ozy Media’s Carlos Watson ($156 million), nursing-home operator Paul Walczak ($10 million), reality-TV figures Todd and Julie Chrisley ($30 million), healthcare fraudster Lawrence Duran ($205 million), and many others whose crimes ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars amounting to a staggering $5.695
billion in total.
The pattern is unmistakable. Trump elevates individuals convicted of fraud and financial crime, shields them when it benefits him, and rebrands them as “victims.” Meanwhile, the real victims the defrauded public, taxpayers, investors, and the integrity of the justice system are left to pay the price. Trump does not oppose fraud, he weaponizes it. He uses vulnerable communities as political scapegoats while giving billionaires and criminals a free pass. And that is the true story behind the image he tries to sell.
Worse still, His rhetoric is not only reckless it is dangerous. A president should not talk like that. In fact, no human being, let alone a national leader, should ever demean another person by calling them “garbage.” But Donald Trump does it, not merely because of who he is as an individual, but because it serves his political strategy. He wants to drag people down to his level, to normalize cruelty, to give them permission to become the worst version of themselves. He wants the country to mirror his anger, his resentments, and his contempt. And moments like this are not new in American history. They follow a familiar pattern one we have seen before, one we recognized decades ago, and one previous generations of Americans stood up to reject. What we are witnessing today echoes the same old playbook of division, scapegoating, and fearmongering that has long threatened the moral fabric of this nation.
I. The Old Script of Hatred When Prejudice Is Manufactured
This moment reminds me of a powerful scene from a 1943 anti-fascist film produced at the height of World War II, when America was fighting Nazism abroad and confronting prejudice at home. In the scene, an angry man declares “I’m just an average American and what I see in this country makes my blood boil. I see people with foreign accents making all the money. I see Negroes holding jobs that belong to me and you. And I ask you how long can this go on? What’s to become of us real Americans?” Another man, stunned, responds “I’ve heard this kind of talk before, but I never expected to hear it in America.” But the angry man continues “This country should be ours without “Without what?” he is asked. “You know without Negroes without alien foreigner without Catholics without Freemasons.” A third man steps in “What’s wrong with Freemasons? I’m a Mason he said” you are talking about me.” Then comes the most important line in the entire scene.
“Before he mentioned Masons, you were ready to agree with him. What about all those other people?” The man answers, exposed in his own hypocrisy “Well he wasn’t talking about me. He was talking about them.” And the gentleman’s reply is unforgettable “In this country, we have no ‘other people.’ We are one people American people, all of us.” The speaker then delivers a warning that could have been written for this very moment in Minnesota “I heard this same talk in Berlin. At first, I thought the Nazis were crazy fanatics. But they were not. They were deliberate. They knew that if they could divide the people make them hate each other they could conquer a nation. Human beings are not born with prejudice. Prejudice is manufactured created by those who need it for their own purposes.”
Today, Trump follows this same script division, fear, scapegoating, and manufactured resentment. He speaks as though American citizenship is conditional, as though “real Americans” come in only one shape, one color, one story. And unfortunately, a few individuals including Dr Ahmed Samatar, who should know better, has chosen to echo or legitimize these narratives providing the intellectual cover that makes prejudice appear respectable. In his recent interview with The New York Times, Dr. Samatar claimed that Somali refugees who fled the civil war were raised in a culture where “stealing from a dysfunctional and corrupt government was widespread.” Such a sweeping generalization does not illuminate truth it reinforces the very stereotypes that hostile actors rely on. Instead of offering nuance, historical context, or responsible scholarship, he ends up validating the same distorted narratives that are now being weaponized against nearly all law-abiding Somali Minnesotans.
II. Ignorance as a Political Weapon When Leaders Choose Darkness
Philosopher Hannah Arendt warned that societies fall apart when ignorance governs their politics. Ignorance is not simply the absence of knowledge it is an active force. It grows when leaders deliberately distort truth, when fear is manufactured, and when citizens are encouraged to distrust their neighbors. Arendt explained that societies do not crumble from external pressure alone; they decay from within when people willingly embrace simplistic narratives over hard truths. This is exactly the kind of ignorance we see today a calculated narrowing of understanding, a refusal to recognize fellow citizens as equals, and a willingness to divide for political gain.
Philosopher Dan DeNicola, writing for MIT Press, takes this further. The greatest danger, he argues, is not ignorance itself, but the ignorance of our own ignorance the belief that we already know enough, that we don’t need to listen, that our fears are facts. Drawing from Plato’s allegory of the cave, DeNicola describes how people can become trapped in a world of shadows, convinced that illusions are reality, simply because they refuse to step into the light.
Trump’s rhetoric fits this pattern perfectly. He is not merely uninformed he is committed to misunderstanding. He chooses to remain in that cave and demands that others remain there with him. His politics depend on shadows, on fear, on convincing people that their neighbors are enemies.
Dr Ahmed Samatar, though coming from a different world, mirrors this posture when he reduces his own community to simplistic stereotypes. Instead of confronting the structural realities of American life the inequalities, the challenges, the opportunities he offers the same flattened narratives used by those who wish to marginalize us. When a person of our own heritage joins this chorus, the harm is doubled they validate the very prejudice that seeks to exclude us. Ignorance becomes a political weapon when those who should know better decide that truth is less profitable than attention.
III. The Somali Contribution and the American Promise
Let us be honest and clear yes, a small number of individuals within Somali community committed fraud. They have been investigated, convicted, and sentenced. And they should be. No community is immune from wrongdoing not Somali, not Black not white, not Muslim not Christian, not rural, not urban. Every group has individuals who violate the law. But only when it comes to Black immigrants especially Somalis is the wrongdoing of a few used to condemn an entire population. Only immigrant community is made to carry collective guilt. Only Somali community is told to “prove” its loyalty, its worthiness, its belonging. Yet Somali Minnesotans have been adding to this state’s prosperity for more than three decades. they have opened thousands of businesses, contributed billions to the economy, worked essential jobs, raised American-born children, sent students to Minnesota’s universities, and participated fully in civic life. Somalis are citizens, taxpayers, workers, elected leaders, voters, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, law-enforcement and health-care professionals, teachers, students, scholars, and community leaders. we presence is a fact of Minnesota’s story whether Trump likes it or not.
To weaponize isolated crimes against an entire community is not leadership. It is cowardice dressed as policy. It is the politics of resentment masquerading as patriotism. And the truth is simple Somali Minnesotans are not going anywhere.
Standing Tall in the Face of Hate
Trump’s words do not just insult Somali Minnesotans. They threaten the very principles of America the “shining city on a hill,” as President Ronald Reagan used to say—and they tear at the fabric of our democracy itself.
Once hatred becomes acceptable against one group, it becomes easier to extend it to others Catholics, Jews, Asians, Arabs, Latinos, other communities, or anyone who doesn’t fit someone’s narrow definition of “real American. That is why this moment demands clarity, courage, and moral conviction.
You don’t have to defend Muslim.
You don’t have to defend us.
You don’t have to defend Somalis.
You don’t even have to defend immigrants.
But you must defend your own humanity. When you refuse to let lies, fear, and ignorance shape your view of your neighbor, you protect the core of what it means to be American. When you reject prejudice no matter who it targets you defend the dignity of everyone.
Trump’s attacks say nothing about us.
But they reveal everything about him.
We choose dignity over fear.
We choose belonging over exclusion.
We choose truth over ignorance.
And we stand tall not because we seek validation, but because we know exactly who we are.
Don’t defend me defend your humanity. We are only “guilty” because President Trump has chosen to treat us as suspects before recognizing us as human. And if you choose silence today, understand this: you will be next tomorrow.
Dayib Sh. Ahmed
Email: Dayib0658@gmail.com
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Dayib is a writer, political analyst and WardheerNews contributor