‘They will vote against Harris’: Arab Americans in Michigan desert Democrats over Gaza
‘They will vote against Harris’: Arab Americans in Michigan desert Democrats over Gaza
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21396125
Stephen Starr in Hamtramck, Michigan
Mon 14 Oct 2024 11.00 EDT
She had so many chances to make this election easier. Could have had a Palestinian talk during the DNC, and that would have likely changed this story.
Yeah, earlier in her campaign, I was optimistic that she was just trying not to undermine Biden's foreign policy, and that she would eventually take an at least slightly more critical position on Israel. So far, though, she's seems entirely committed to Israel's escalating violence, and she won't even make the smallest gesture towards the Palestinian community. I didn't expect her to denounce Israel, but staying lock-step with Biden on this is looking like political suicide.
You'd have to be an idiot to make another countries conflict an election issue, when neither candidate supports your side. The fact that neither candidate is pro Palestine, it's a moot point in terms of the election
So, a conflict where USA supply weapons and all other manners of support used for open genocide (btw illegally, US law declare US need to stop in such case, but Blinken and co blocked it) and is even sending US soldiers to serve as a missile bait, isn't an issue for US voters according to you?
Nice democracy you think they should have there.
You’d have to be an idiot to make another countries conflict an election issue
apply this to Ukraine :)
Is this a joke? This genocide is as much our “conflict” as it is Israel’s, given that Israel wouldn’t be able to do what it’s doing without massive US financial, materiel, and political support. It’s absolutely an election issue. You can say it’s not ’till the cows come home, but uncommitted is as real as death & taxes.
Guess I'm an idiot then. 🤷 I think I can live with that label. its unfortunate harris couldn't find her moral spine when it mattered but here we are.
Angry with the Biden administration – and, by extension, Kamala Harris – for its support for Israel, Arab Americans may be willing to overlook Trump’s history of closeness with Israel’s hard-right leaders.
So, these individuals could be described as the common clay of the new West?
yeah man, denigrate them more, that'll surely get them on your side! maybe a touch more smug condescension? anything except engaging with their concerns, of course.
these folks are doing logical loop de loops
Okay, but, abandon her for whom exactly? Just not vote? Vote 3rd party? I am not going to say Harris is perfect, but this is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Many of the candidates from alternative parties are anti-genocide.
No, it's cutting off a cancerous growth yourself because you can't afford healthcare. You might die to metastasis, you might die to blood loss, but if you leave the growth alone it will kill you.
And yes most are planning on voting third party.
I guess that just doesn't make sense to me in the current political landscape. We know the third party isn't going to get the votes, and we also know that Trump is not only not going to save Gaza, he's going to do everything in his power to make this country worse as well. Currently, voting third party is throwing your vote away. I'm not saying I'm in love with the system or that it isn't fucked, but we have two options this election. Neither of them is going to save Gaza, but I don't see why damming the whole country, as well as yourself, to a worse existence, is the more sane option.
Oh they're really gonna love how Trump handles Arabs
It's like the trolley problem, except instead of the other track having fewer people, it has more, and it just loops back around to run over the people on the first track anyway. We should have sent the trolley on a completely different route decades ago.
single issue voters
the single issue is the eradication of their families and friends
yeah man I wonder why they don't support that
If this is a joke, it's a very bad one. If it isn't, good luck on pulling your head out of your ass.
Do you consider war crimes, mass murderand sending in our troops to assist in a far right wing colonial war -- all done with our tax dollars to be a "single issue" like... school vouchers or Amtrak funding? It seems a very dishonest or at best an inaccurate method to weigh issues against each other.
I mean their single issue is Harris supports murdering their friends and family via her Israel proxy. If you're going to have a single issue to decide your vote I can't think of a better one.
Personally Harris lost my vote for two main reasons:
There are a bunch of other things I could overlook but not those two. I jokingly sent my friend a message yesterday.
God it amazes me to watch a candidate who is part of a historically low approval admin go 'im not wrong its the voters who are wrong'. repeatedly.
my friends response? 'I can't tell which candidate you're talking about' which was precisely my point.
There is no difference because Harris knows her good little gooses steppers will vote for her no matter what she does or who she kills.
Because Trump who literally said Muslims should wear a "Special ID at all times" back in 2015 is obviously gonna be much better....
Read the article. Maybe half or more are voting third party, they hate trump and kamala.
The other, from one of the interviews, the last four years of Democrat led politics has literally been the worst in their lives for both themselves living in america, and for their friends and families who live in the middle east.
Assuming a democrat leader is best for everyone is part of the problem. There are groups of people who suffer under Democrat leadership, and ignoring them is just frustrating them.
The other, from one of the interviews, the last four years of Democrat led politics has literally been the worst in their lives for both themselves living in america, and for their friends and families who live in the middle east.
Were they not alive from 2001 to 2008?
And they should know that the Electoral College means that this only helps Trump, who in 2015 wanted Muslims in America to wear "Special IDs"
Biden/Harris aren't even giving them the chance to wear the special IDs, they wiped out Gaza and took out a few churches and Christians in the process too
Who could have possibly seen this coming for a full year
Honestly it's baffling. They wouldn't have even had to actually do anything. They could have just let a Palestinian-American come up and say generic "we have to do better for the people of Gaza and the people of the world" type of shit and they would have even said that they endorsed Kamala. That's it, and a shitload of people would have been at least able to lie to themselves and say "ok, she'll do something different." But they couldn't even be asked to go through the motions this time.
It's such fucking smooth brained reactionary shit, you don't get to act like Republicans because Republicans will never vote for you, the ones that will are only ever going to do it to not vote for the current fascist, and their policy led to him.
I guess maybe the taste of David Frum's approval is sweeter than winning an election.
Cant blame them, Biden\Harris are literally sending Israel the bombs.
Yeah but if you don't vote Kamala, Trump will hurt Palestinians even harder and it will be your fault 🤡
And Trump will just skip the middleman and bomb Gaza and Palestine himself. You're talking about the guy who moved the embassy to Jerusalem, after all.
Both parties are beholden to Israel and the power of AIPAC
Other way around. Both parties support Israel because Israel helps secure the Petro-Dollar, by which the US dominates the Global South with predatory IMF loans.
And it's the cork on land migration out of Africa into West Asia and eventually Europe.
And it's strategically important for the Red Sea trade route connecting Asia to the Mediterranean (although they're having a little trouble with this one lol)
And it's the laboratory for surveillance and detainment and border walls, where they can live test technology and strategies that get exported to prisons and borders and cities around the West.
And it's a place for antisemitic governments to send all their Jewish citizens.
And, of course, there's a large apocalyptic cult of Christians that believe we need to immanentize the eschaton so Jesus can return.
Israel serves so many functions!
Context:
So with that context, my question is thus: It seems clear that Trump wouldn't change anything about the genocide in Gaza, and that he would bring more evil than the current status quo. So if you're an american voter, you obviously can't let Trump get in. But, Harris is gross to vote for as well, even if its a "lesser of the two evils" thing. What do you do? As far as I understand its basically one or the other, you dont really have any third party to vote for right?
It's more of a difference in practical values. At what point does the "lesser evil" itself become intolerable evil? Some people insist that you should vote for Hitler over 101% Hitler, that there is no intolerable level as long as there is a miniscule difference. Others have firm red lines in the sand, like genocide, where they advocate for abandoning them and pushing as hard as you can, even advocating for moves outside the electoral system like revolution.
Your understanding is solid for not being an American. You're not missing anything substantial-- people who are voting 3rd party think that the "dems need to learn" and that the dems can't do whatever they want so their vote is supposed to be a punishment. But as you point out that if they really cared about this issue then they would vote for Harris because trump will do worse on this issue and all around. The time to make changes to our political system is not when you vote for president, but in the years leading up to that.
In other words, people voting for 3rd party or Trump over this issue are morons. It sucks that our political system is what it is but if you knowingly vote for anything other than the candidate promising not-fascism, then you are supporting fascism.
I just hope enough democrats understand this. I'm not happy with gaza either but our country is still recovering from the first shit show presidency of Trump, and fascists are closely watching this election.
In other words, people voting for 3rd party or Trump over this issue are morons
incorrect you're missing context of reliably blue states. I most certainly dont need to vote for democrats and can essentially do what I want w/ respect to the presidential ticket.
All the nonsense from the liberal idiots in the democratic party miss this critical contextual bit of information. I happily vote 3rd party whenever there is one that aligns more closely with my goals. its just rare one does; because it simply doesn't matter in my state for the outcome.
My ballot typically goes:
all this blue no matter who are just brain dead lunacy by the party is essentially: The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final and most essential command.
Hopefully some day we'll be able to have reasonable conversations about the toxicity of the democratic party but we just are not there yet and unfortunately the Ukrainians and Palestinians are paying the price in blood and harris doesnt have the backbone to challenge her corporate owners. Biden lost my support when he broke the train union strike. I believe he and harris would have broken the port workers strike as well if it wasn't a month before the election.
things that prevent me from voting for harris:
until then I'll continue advocating for and campaigning for election reform and primarying useless democrats. She could probably swing my vote if she commits to khan and never breaking a strike as those are important to the health of our country and economy but at this point its clear she wont shift.
You always vote against the fascist and the guy who staged a coup. It's that simple.
they exist, but the electoral system is designed to keep them from gaining power. And since (most) states use first past the post, secondary preferences aren't taken into account, so if you vote third party when you would have voted for Harris otherwise you increase Trumps chance of winning. There's some argument to be made that voting third party or not voting might influence democrats in the future to change their policy to appeal to those voters but I don't know how realistic that is.
This is limiting the scope of thought to four years.
Democrats winning means genocide becomes fully normalized forever, whereas if Trump wins it means four more years of genocide but the democrats will have learnt they cannot ignore the left.
In the short term Trump will be more damaging, but in the long term it is very debatable which is worse.
Democrats winning means genocide becomes fully normalized forever,
Even more so if the guy who openly said murder is a genetic predisposition wins.
Who for the record is Donald J Trump.
Hmm. I can understand this perspective. I guess its a bit tough. As a trans person I would find it very hard to do anything that isn't actively working against trump being in power, because if he gets in power it's very likely that my life will be in danger (if I was an American). But at the same time, as mentioned before, it wouldn't be an easy sell for me to be voting pro-harris.
I guess your scenario doesn't mean you're going to vote for trump, just that you'll vote third party or spoil your ballot?
Great so now we can have a more certain Trump presidency. Why limit yourself to just one genocide when you can have this guy in power here too:
“How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. You know now a murder, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now,”
Biden already started the Lebanon genocide. You're going to need to up that Trump talking point to three genocides.
Based on the article, that's very clearly what they want.
EDIT: anyone who's downvoting me should try explaining why the Democratic mayor of a Muslim majority town that hates pride flags is endorsing Trump. Some people clearly don't mind if Trump wins.
At this point (3 weeks before elections) if she comes out against the genocide, it's obvious it's just a career move and not her actual feelings. It will be business as usual afterward.
Apparently this is what her supporters want. As long as they can convince themselves to FEEL like she didn't want to aid in genocide, that's all that matters.
People here are already claiming that she's secretly against Israel and will flip once she wins, they're in for a surprise (if they're even being genuine).
I said it sarcastically once! Sorry!
Not just in Michigan ;)
He hopes that Trump, on the other hand, uses his business acumen to bring down the cost of the products he sells in his store, many of which are imported from overseas. “Trump is not perfect, but we have no choice,” he says.
Hashim’s other major concern is Gaza, where more than 42,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks. “The No 1 reason [to not vote for Harris] is that she is supporting Israel 100%,” he said.
I don't understand how someone this stupid is able to run a successful business. The high price of goods now is completely due to republican policies that have taken the brakes off of corporate price gouging and Trump has stated that not only is he 100% supportive of Israel but he will happily supercharge their genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.
Also, the naivety that Trimp won't eventually turn on him:
First, they came for the Haitians...
Why would they even vote ?
I want to laugh but it's so dark they're turning to trump
Hopefully they turn to Jill Stein.
I don't get this. 3rd party will never win. Ever. There are two real options. Vote for the one that offers the best outcome for you. Not doing that is accepting that you are ok with the worst of the two, because you had a chance to keep them out of office and choose not to.
I don't get this. 3rd party will never win. Ever. There are two real options.
People are voting third party because you believe there are only 2 real options.
Vote for the one that offers the best outcome for you.
Gotcha, we should vote for Claudia De La Crúz.
Not doing that is accepting that you are ok with the worst of the two, because you had a chance to keep them out of office and choose not to.
Both Trump and Harris are the worst options, that's why we are going against them.
How is voting for her the best option. Literally all she can do is benefit the Republicans by pulling votes from the Dems. Hell, in Georgia they've literally ruled that votes for her won't be counted even though she's on the ballot.
Her winning the US Presidential election is less-likely than winning the power all 25 consecutive times by finding the winning ticket on the ground at random truck stops in Malaysia.
Oh boy, that'll teach 'em....you know, the party where they absolutely listened to the people who didn't want Hillary just because "it was her turn".
yup...this'll fix it!
If anything handing over the presidency to Trump would be incentive for Democrats to move further to the genocidal right.
stop paying your taxes too, that shit is funding the genocide
Way ahead of you.
Right behind you (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)
My man... This the FO stage and TAXMAN will deliver FA stage.
Tax evasion is a crime to served for the elites and their regime whores.
Wouldnt recommend this to anyone unless you are in the club
It's THEIR Fault for not voting for the Two Candidates Killing Their Families and instead hoping a Trump Presidency would be a Quicker fall so we can Rebuild in a way that Their Families don't die!
This is going to be such a leopard ate my face moment. Do they really think the Republicans are going to do anything? They're just going to drop some bombs and call it a day. At least with the Democrats there's a slight chance.
Hey y'all, at least Gaza is saved, right? Take that, Kamala! Haha! Both sides are the same! All of this definitely would have happened under Kamala, it's so obvious! Two wings of the same bird amirite?!
Good bye frying-pan, hello fire.
Thankfully you can write whatever name you wish in that box. feel free to exercise your right to remain uncommitted.
There is a perspective that the genocide will be the same under both. Maybe a few months ago, but bidens since stopped asking for a cease fire, and has literally sent troops to israel to defend them already.
Its less about voting for trump and more about how increasingly unpalatable its become for some to endorse the current administration. For example in Michigan, a lot of people in the third party movement have family overseas, and its hard to argue to them that they should care more about the theoretical distopia being shouted at them versus the very real one they have been living for a while now.
Put yourself in someone else's shoes for once.
if arabs love Palestine so fucking much, why don’t they open up their countries’ lands for the creation of a Palestinian state?
Are you asking why Arabs living in America dont open up Michigan for Palestanian people?
I didnt realize they controlled immigration policy, thats crazy.
Trump stated earlier this year that if re-elected, he would ask Israel to make the Gaza issue "go away" in under a week. It's one thing to be supplying the weapons, but quite another to have the most powerful country give their approval to do whatever it takes to end the conflict to Israel's benefit. There was a Palestinian newspaper article I saw a couple months ago that gave the opinion that under Harris they would get bombed, but under Trump they would cease to exist. Of course when I linked that in a similar discussion I was accused a picking my sources, because hey what does a Palestinian newspaper know about Palestine?
Some people can’t/refuse to comprehend that this was the Democrats race to lose. The same was true in 2016, and just like then, they will blame anyone but their own party. They’ll do anything but look in the mirror.
How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately "elevated" Donald Trump with its "pied piper" strategy
You wanna know how he’ll be worse. You’re going to prison for this post. And you’ll ‘never have to vote again’ for any choice ever. He’s straight up fucking said it. This level of stupidity is un-fucking-fathomable.
The important thing here is that I don't have to be civil to these people. We should shame them at every chance and equate them to literal MAGA. Only then will we win the election, which is what this is about and is not some distraction.
Good!
Interesting, this was exactly my mindset on voting at age 10 or so. Guess some people never gets out of that phase?
You can't claim to give a shit about people and then say things like this
This is the kind of meme that talks past you, degrades you, and then will complain when not responded to.