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.
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.