You were one of the organizers of the Uncommitted vote — to get people to write “uncommitted” on their ballots in the presidential primary to protest the U.S. government’s backing for Israel’s war. That produced roughly 700,000 primary votes. What did you discover about the task of translating protest to politics?
A lot of reporters in the winter were saying to me, “Don’t you think if Biden swings toward Muslims in Michigan, he will lose Jews in suburban Philadelphia?” And my hypothesis is that Muslim partisan loyalty to the Democratic Party is much thinner than it is with Jewish Americans, who are part of the Democratic Party for many reasons that have nothing to do with Israel — liberal and democratic values, social justice values. Over the years, polls have shown that Jewish voters generally do not list Israel among their top five issues. Many Muslims are part of the Democratic Party for its anti-racist values, so when the [party’s support for the] Gaza war is in contradiction with those values, it’s easy for them to leave.
Some people don’t know that Muslim and Arab voters voted for George W. Bush in 2000. They might defect to the Republican Party out of anger. That’s a real possibility. In the same way that you’ve seen a slow realignment of Latinos toward Republicans, I think this election will show a slow realignment of Arabs and Muslims toward Republicans.
All the DNC had to do was let a Palestinian-American speak at the convention. Just one. They could have hand picked the most friendly, least controversial speaker to ensure zero chances for any off message speech.
Yet instead they let Republicans speak.
The message is clear: “Shut the fuck up and vote for Democrats. We don’t want your voices. This tent isn’t big enough for you. What are you going to do, vote Republican? lol”
Pretty sure I heard the speaker give their speech on some other outlet and it was pretty tame and lib. The speaker already was friendly uncontroversial.
She gave her speech outside the convention at the sit-in, and yeah, it wasn’t like she was calling for the abolition of the so-called state of Israel or anything like that. But it doesn’t matter to Democrats, they don’t want to hear Palestinian voices at all. They just want their votes.
I agree. If the DNC had let the one person speak then no matter what all folks whos main issue is whats happening in israel and the us relationship thereof would totally now vote for them. Its as easy as that. That is all they want. /s
You’re being sarcastic, but people wanted to pretend that Harris was not responsible for Biden’s genocide and that she represented a change in policy. The uncommitted movement only asked for a single Palestinian-American and that would have satisfied them. Obviously it wouldn’t satisfy all voters but it would satisfy that specific voter bloc.
I put sarcastic because it totally would not have satisfied the block. The comments would be about does the DNC having this one speaker think that is enough.
It wouldn’t satisfy the entire anti-genocide bloc, but it would satisfy that specific movement of 700,000 voters because that’s literally all they asked for. Why are you trying to make excuses for silencing Palestinian-American voices?
definately my bad. I was not speaking limiting to that movement. Im not trying to silence anyone but at the same time I find the screaming for something that is so complex is pointless. Tageted affairs like this are exactly the right way to go. I merely did not understand it. which can be another problem for a movement.
Just First Past the Post voting things