by AZAD ESSA & UMAR A. FAROOQ
Despite fear-mongering and threats that Trump would be worse for Palestinians, these Muslims say they’ve had enough
In 2016, Saad Husain swallowed a bitter pill and voted for Hillary Clinton, despite her hawkish track record on foreign policy in the Middle East.
This year, Husain says the toxic rhetoric, reels of disinformation, fear-mongering, and crucially, the liberal establishment’s insistence on voting for “the lesser of two evils”, is giving him flashbacks of that year.
Then in 2020, he begrudgingly voted for a lacklustre Joe Biden to ward off the return of Former President Donald Trump.
The 62-year-old from Canton, a town in Wayne County, Michigan, says he has watched with horror over the past year as Biden, who was referred to by many as the “lesser evil”, signed off on the most military aid any US administration has ever sent to Israel as it massacred Palestinians by the tens of thousands in Gaza.
“I’ve had enough,” a resolute Husain told Middle East Eye. “I will be voting for Jill Stein,” he said, referring to the Green Party’s candidate, considered one of the more prominent third-party candidates on the ballot.
Husain’s decision is not inconsequential.
As a resident of one of seven swing states in the US, considered amongst those where even a handful of votes could determine the election result, his vote for the third-party is being perceived by many Democrats as a gift to Trump.
In 2020, for instance, the Democrats narrowly won Michigan. Four years earlier, Trump won the state by just 10,000 votes.
This will be the first time Husain will have voted for a candidate for commander-in-chief outside the Democratic Party since he cast his first vote 30 years ago.
In doing so, Husain joins a legion of Muslim-American voters across swing states who say that not only are they refusing to be intimidated into voting for Harris, as Democrats hold the spectre of another Trump presidency over their heads, but they are also searching for a new political home outside the two-party system.
In interviews across several swing states, including North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Florida, Middle East Eye spoke to several Muslim Americans who say they are voting for third-party candidates, like Jill Stein and Claudia de la Cruz, and they say they are prepared to face the consequences.
“We don’t know what Trump would do, and yes, I am worried about him. But it’s all still hypothetical. In comparison, I do know what the Democrats have done,” Husain told MEE.
“I believe a third voice would be good for democracy and we have to build for the future,” Husain added.
Fear of Trump 2.0
According to a Pew Study from 2017, Muslims make up around 3.45 million people in the US, many of whom live in several swing states across the US. The Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) released data in late August showing there were 2.5 million registered Muslim voters in the country.
Palestine, and by extension, Israel’s war on Gaza, is an issue that tops the list of priorities for many Muslims this time around, even beyond domestic concerns.
While it is unclear how Muslim Americans will vote in this year’s presidential election, polls suggest that a sizeable number of the community will snub Harris over her support for Israel, with many indicating they are considering voting for a third-party candidate.
In August, a Cair poll showed that in Michigan, 40 percent of Muslim voters backed Stein from the Green Party.
Stein and several other third-party candidates have been vocal critics of US support for the war on Gaza, with Stein pledging to end the war on day one, if she were to become president. Stein also pledged to impose an arms embargo on Israel until it complies with international law.
In that same Cair poll, Republican candidate Trump shows 18 percent of the Muslim vote going to him in Michigan, with Harris trailing at 12 percent.
While several commentators have warned that a Trump 2.0 presidency would be especially dangerous for Muslims, Arab Americans, as well as other minorities, several prominent imams and community leaders have publicly called on the Muslim community to ensure that Harris suffers an electoral defeat.
“We may not know what the future holds, but we know this: we will not taint our hands by voting for or supporting an administration that has brought so much bloodshed upon our brothers and sisters,” a group of more than 130 imams from across the country wrote in a letter.
“We want to be absolutely clear: don’t stay home and skip voting. This year, make a statement by voting third-party for the presidential ticket.”
None of those interviewed by MEE said they are under the illusion that a third-party candidate can viably win the election.
They said voting for a third-party was either based on principle or a strategic imperative.
In Florida, where Trump won in 2020, Javeria Farooqi, 39, says she would be voting with her conscience.
“I’m not afraid of a Trump presidency. We’ve already had a Trump presidency …I’m no better off under the Democrats because you’re seeing the political climate right now as to what’s happening at Palestinian rallies, at Palestinian protests,” Farooqi, told MEE.
“What I am truly afraid of is answering to my Lord, because there will be a day where I have to answer, what did I do when my brothers and sisters and children were being butchered? What did I do in the face of brutal injustice? That is what I’m afraid of, not Donald Trump’s presidency,” said Farooqi, who hails from Fort Lauderdale in Broward County and previously voted Democrat.
In 2020, Florida became Trump territory.
Others, like Nazia Kazi, pointed to the double standards of the Democratic Party that warns of Trump fascism while it flouts domestic and international law; and while it stands by as academics are fired and students are criminalised and demonised as antisemitic for criticising Israel.
Under the Biden administration, the US government has fudged the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor’s attempt to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
It has also publicly lampooned the case brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
“Every four years, we get this predictable hand-wringing from US liberals about a lesser evil, about this being the most important election of our lives, all while the Democratic Party grants key concessions to the right-wing it claims to want to defeat,” Kazi, an anthropologist and educator in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, told MEE.
“This year, their refrains have become even more grotesque as we witness US-backed slaughter in Gaza. While there are elements of ‘controlled opposition,’ those highly visible mouthpieces who tell us they oppose that slaughter while they also sheepdog for the Democrats.”
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