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As the dust slowly settles on this election, and Kamala Harris stands before the wreckage of a campaign that failed to win over a single swing state, the Democratic Party and its liberal supporters are eagerly looking for someone, anyone, other than themselves to blame for their catastrophic defeat. And, it seems, they’ve already found convenient scapegoats: Arab Americans, Muslims and anyone else who refused to cast their vote for the administration that eagerly enabled the genocide of my people, Palestinians.
Throughout the night of November 5, as electoral votes from key states like North Carolina, Indiana and Ohio rolled in for Trump, social platforms became overrun with angry Democrats blaming the result on Arab and Muslim Americans who did not vote for Harris and wishing more death and destruction on our brethren in the Middle East as punishment for this perceived “betrayal”.
“I hope every f*cking Muslims [sic] who voted Trump gets to watch Bibi turn Gaza into a glass parking lot,” wrote one. “[Green Party leader Jill] Stein voters are going to see what Trump does to Gaza,” suggested another.
Their argument appears to be that by rejecting Harris, we gifted Trump the presidency and “sacrificed” the future of American democracy at the altar of foreign policy.
They seem to believe not only that we are powerful enough to decide the fate of democracy in this country but also that, simply due to our minority status, we “owe” our vote to the Democratic Party.
Sure, it is true that in contemporary US elections, minorities consistently showed support for Democratic candidates at much higher rates than white voters.
In 2016, Trump’s victory against then-Democratic presidential nominee, Hilary Clinton, was secured primarily by white voters, with 57 percent of white men and 47 percent of white women voting for him. Eighty-eight percent of Black voters and 65 percent of Asian voters supported Democrats in that election. Similarly, three-quarters of Muslim voters and some 60 percent of Arab Americans said they cast a ballot for Clinton that year. The pattern persisted in 2020, with minorities, including Muslims and Arabs, showing up in large numbers to support the Biden-Harris ticket.
But this historic support, which undoubtedly bolstered Democratic victories in the past and helped Clinton hold the popular vote in 2016, does not mean that we “owe” anything to the party, or that we can be held responsible for its “magnificent” defeat against Trump in this election.
Politicians, no matter their party affiliation, are not entitled to the votes of any given demographic. It is their duty, indeed their prerogative, to earn our votes. In this election cycle, however, the Democratic establishment worked tirelessly to ensure we would not vote for them. So this defeat is on them, and on them alone.
Just look at how the Democrats campaigned in the state I live in, Michigan. A crucial swing state where elections can hinge on mere thousands of votes, Michigan is home to some 200,000 Muslim Americans. Over the past year, these voters made it clear, in every way they could, that their vote was conditioned on the party pledging to end its financial, political and military support of massacres of Palestinians, Lebanese and Yemenis. The “uncommitted” campaign – looking to end the Democratic Party’s support for Israel’s genocide – secured more than 100,000 votes in the state’s Democratic primary.
The Democratic Party did not listen. Harris not only refused to abandon Biden’s staunchly pro-Israel policies on Palestine but also personally supported continued bloodshed in Gaza by publicly insulting anti-genocide campaigners in the state. When pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted a Harris rally in Detroit by simply stating that they “won’t vote for genocide”, she shut them up with her catchphrase, “I’m speaking”. She then sent former President Bill Clinton to the state to deliver a speech that tried to justify the mass killing of Palestinians. Liz Cheney, the Republican daughter of Iraq war architect and war criminal Dick Cheney, also made an appearance in the state to campaign for Harris. Congressman Ritchie Torres, who spent the past year accusing anyone demanding an end to the bloodshed in Gaza of being an anti-Semitic terrorist, was another surrogate Harris sent to Michigan.
As a result, understandably, Muslims in Michigan did not vote for Harris. They did not vote for Harris, because they did not owe her their vote, and she did nothing to earn it.
In the city of Dearborn, where some 55 percent of residents are of Middle Eastern descent, Trump won with 42.48 percent of the vote over Vice President Kamala Harris, who received just 36.26 percent. The Green Party’s Jill Stein, who campaigned heavily on ending Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, received 18.37 percent. In 2020, an impressive 74.20 percent of voters in the city had cast their ballot for Biden.
What we are seeing in Michigan is indeed a picture of betrayal. But it was the Democratic Party that betrayed the voters who supported it election after election, not the other way around.
In any case, numbers emerging from Michigan and other battleground states are showing that the Democratic losses are simply too big to be blamed solely on Arab and Muslim voters.
The Senate, for example, flipped as a result of Democratic losses in places like Ohio and West Virginia, where results cannot be tied to the supposed “betrayal” of Muslim and Arab voters. These races, and eventually the Senate and the White House, were lost because the DNC refused to listen to the primary demands and desires of not only Muslims and Arabs but the vast majority of potential Democratic voters.
They did not offer answers and solutions to the American people on key issues like healthcare, climate change, and, yes, ending genocide.
Indeed, unlike what Harris and her surrogates may suggest, most Americans want to see an end to US support for Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. A February survey of 1232 likely voters by Data for Progress found that 67 percent – including 77 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of independents – would support the US calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and conditioning military aid to Israel.
This was some eight months ago, before Israel committed countless more massacres, invaded Lebanon, and began ethnically cleansing North Gaza using starvation as a weapon of war. Even a higher percentage of Americans likely want their country to stop supporting Israel now.
Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party did not lose this election because any particular demographic “betrayed them”. They lost the election because they betrayed their core base, including Arab and Muslim Americans.
Kamala Harris could have easily secured their votes, and the votes of many others, simply by running on a humane and humanitarian ticket, including promises to uphold international law and to bring an end to American complicity in Israel’s genocide. Instead, the administration chose stubbornness, apparently willing to gamble with both human lives and electoral success.
The Democratic establishment can’t have it both ways. They can’t ignore, dismiss, and antagonise communities while simultaneously expecting their unconditional support. Palestinians, Arab and Muslim Americans, and others who have walked away from the Democratic Party over its support for Israel, aren’t asking for special treatment – they’re asking for basic human dignity and moral consistency in foreign policy.
This isn’t just about foreign policy – it’s about the nature of democratic representation itself. Those who remained silent through months of humanitarian crisis but now emerge to discuss electoral politics reveal that their prior silence was indeed a choice. It was a choice that spoke volumes about priorities and values. They now profess, “Trump will be worse”. But for those who have watched their children maimed and land destroyed, there is nothing worse.
We, of course, know that President Trump will not be any less supportive of the genocide of my people than Biden or Harris. His actions during his first term in office made that crystal clear. He is a rot that has grown out of a decades long history of white supremacy, racism, and bigotry. But this does not mean we could have stepped over the shredded remains of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children killed by American bombs dropped by Israel to vote for the woman who personally defended and facilitated their murder. We couldn’t, and we didn’t.
It is time, as the country and the world gear up for a second Trump presidency, that Democrats stop passing the buck and take responsibility for the choices they made. We are here not because of anything Arab and Muslim Americans did or did not do. We are here because the Democratic Party, first under Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris, insisted on perpetrating genocide while ignoring the fundamental principles of “democracy” and “freedom” they supposedly cherish.
So, Vice President Kamala Harris, Gaza is speaking now. Was the slaughter of our children worth it?
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
English (US)