Muslim and Arab Americans Should Abandon Biden in 2024
Democrats have long taken the Muslim-American support for granted. In response to Biden's abysmal handling of the war on Gaza, we should organize to withhold the vote in 2024.
I had originally published this post on November 29th but it was accidentally deleted. This is a repost and the content below has not been updated since original publication.
***
“When Trump wins again and starts with another Muslim ban, you guys should be the first to be shipped out. Think that’s fair.”
“Don’t bitch if Biden loses and they start deporting Muslims.”
“Don’t ask for help when Trump deports you to the West Bank.”
“You can always self deport before Trump does it for you in January 2025.”
A few weeks ago, President Biden told reporters that there was no chance of a ceasefire in Gaza, even as the number of civilian deaths continued to steadily increase and as millions took to the streets to demand an end to the war. “None, no possibility!” he said. Angry, disheartened, disgusted, I did what I often do and took to social media, declaring my intent to persuade voters to withhold their support for Biden in the upcoming election. Within minutes, my mentions were flooded with some of the most virulent and racist comments I've encountered in over a decade on the platform, the examples above representing just a snapshot of the reactions to my post. All of them originated from users advocating for the reelection of Joe Biden, all of them, I would guess, people believing themselves to represent the antithesis of the brutish Islamophobia and xenophobia that marked the era of Donald Trump.
For over a month, Muslim Americans and their allies have beseeched the president to pursue a permanent ceasefire in Israel's ongoing war on Gaza. More than 15,000 Gazans have been killed as of this moment, with nearly 70% of the reported casualties women and children. Thousands more remain trapped under rubble. Access to water and electricity is highly restricted. Nearly 77% of Gazans have been displaced from their homes. Third party international observers have repeatedly referred to the situation as catastrophic, including the director of the World Health Organization (WHO). Even Israeli scholars of the Holocaust have described the war on Gaza as genocidal. Despite mounting evidence of Israel’s unprecedented targeting of civilians, the Biden administration has not only dismissed the calls for a lasting ceasefire, but has also cast doubts on the number of the dead in Gaza. While a fragile temporary truce has been brokered by the Qatari government with the backing of American officials, the situation remains extremely explosive and Israel has already violated numerous terms of the ceasefire.
I was not surprised by the replies to my tweet. In the last several years, the liberal electoral mantra has been a simple one: vote for us or else. Or else you will have to deal with our opponent, an unpredictable leader hell-bent on the destruction of your communities, of human rights, of the very foundation of democracy itself. They present this ultimatum to their critics as though the threat is new information, as if we do not know the stakes better than they do, as if we have not felt the same threats from both sides for years and years on end.
Today that threat rings hollow for the Muslim-American community. For one, liberals have become increasingly reluctant to explain how exactly they differ from their opponents, especially on questions of foreign policy. Moreover, they often are insulted and incensed when confronted with justified criticisms of their party’s policies.
There is a growing tide of frustration against this attitude in the Muslim- and Arab-American community. In a video released in early November, Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American representative in the United States Congress, accused Biden of supporting the genocide of Palestinians, cautioning the president that “the American people are not with you on this one. We will remember in 2024.”
The National Muslim Democratic Council, comprised of influential leaders from pivotal swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, called upon President Biden to exert his influence on Israel and facilitate a ceasefire. In their open letter titled "Ceasefire Ultimatum," party leaders and activists urged the White House to advocate for an immediate and meaningful end to hostilities. Otherwise, they would pledge to “mobilize Muslim, Arab, and allied voters to withhold endorsement, support, or votes for any candidate who did not advocate for a ceasefire and endorse the Israeli offensive against the Palestinian people.”
This is no trivial warning, considering Michigan's slim 2.6 percent margin of victory in the 2020 election. The margins in other crucial states like Pennsylvania and Arizona were even narrower. With Biden securing the latter state by a mere 10,000 votes over Trump, these differences could easily reverse if Muslim voters choose to withhold their support. The letter's conclusion left no room for confusion. "It has become evident that our voices are being ignored, but our votes will not be. Simply put, as Gaza turns red, so could crucial battleground states.”
As I have watched the knee-jerk responses roll in from liberals, eager to blame the Muslim community for potential 2024 losses, I wanted to examine the ethics and the strategy of withholding the vote. For instance, are there good political reasons for Muslims Americans mobilizing to withhold the vote in next year’s presidential election? Could doing so potentially jeopardize the fate of American democracy? Is abandoning support for Biden a tactically rash and counterproductive response to the situation in Gaza? Would this make Muslim Americans worse off in the long run?
Liberals have long taken the support of Muslim and Arab Americans for granted, only engaging with our concerns when it serves their electoral interests. That’s why in 2024 I will be withholding my vote. While I live in a reliably blue state, I am mindful that minority coalitions constitute the voting blocs pivotal to the Democratic Party's success in swing states. In the upcoming election, my aim is to use my influence to mobilize Muslim and Arab voters to withhold their support for Biden's reelection. While this decision might be viewed as counterproductive, considering the risks of another Trump presidency, I believe it is both politically and morally justifiable.
The Political Argument
In many regards, a vote is an expressive gesture, a formal indication of choice with communicative and pragmatic intent. When we vote, we attempt to convey a message through choosing; either one of approval and affirmation, or conversely, of disapprobation and frustration with the status quo. In fact, such modes of expression are foundational to the well-being of a democracy, and an important reason why we participate in the electoral process to begin with—to remind the powerful that we exist and that our votes afford us an opportunity to demand accountability. In this sense, voting is one of the few ways through which ordinary people exercise political influence. It is our leverage, our insurance against political alienation and disenfranchisement, our way of signaling to the ruling classes that they have to heed our voices.
But a vote is not necessarily guaranteed - such is the nature of the democratic process. In a well-ordered democracy, voters have to be reasoned with and persuaded, and political debate is organized around competing preferences and ideals. A candidate might gain your confidence if they campaign on a set of convictions that are important to you. If they deliver on their campaign promises, and perform the duties of their office satisfactorily, they can subsequently petition for your vote once more. Otherwise, you have the right to redirect your vote toward other candidates, or withhold your vote altogether if none of your options are sufficiently compelling. In short, how we vote should not be constrained by the authority of prior norms or requirements. Rather, how and what we vote for is up for debate and contention. In normally functioning deliberative democracies, according to German philosopher Jürgen Harbermas, “no force except that of the better argument is exercised.” Likewise, in the American context, voters have to be persuaded to vote in a certain way, rather than being coerced or demanded to do so.
For this important reason, we should never uncritically and blindly pledge electoral allegiance to a single politician or political group. Doing so deprives us of our political bargaining rights, the collective power that the electoral process affords us to influence policymakers and their behaviors. In fact, demanding that a group votes in one way or another, regardless of their preferences, would be antithetical to the very ideals that liberals claim are going be compromised under a Trump presidency: the ability to choose freely and rationally from among a range of options without the threat of intimidation and force.
If we accept these democratic and deliberative principles, then the question is: has the Democratic Party presented compelling arguments to persuade Muslim Americans to once more vote for Joe Biden? Not really. In fact, the only argument I have seen thus far is as follows. While it might be true that Biden could do more to curtail Israel’s military aggression in Gaza, Muslim Americans are much better off under another Biden presidency than the reign of terror that Trump will invariably unleash on our communities. If we really value the safety of ourselves and our loved ones, party loyalists opine, then we should do our darnedest to thwart another Trump presidency. Are we so woefully amnesiac that we have forgotten the ordeal of the Muslim Ban? Do we really want to see what new cruelties Trump might unleash on us? Or are we so eager to get deported back to wherever it is we’ve all come from—probably some wasteland resembling Arrakis in the liberal imagination—that we are willing to bargain with the Devil that is Republicanism?
So the critical consideration for Muslim Americans is whether it is prudent to withhold or redirect our votes, given the potential indirect consequences that could lead to even more hostile conditions for our existence. The liberal argument emphasizes that such a decision would be counterproductive to our political aims, as a Trump presidency is anticipated to be significantly more adversarial towards Muslim communities. Furthermore, the refusal to vote for Biden is an indirect vote for Trump, given the expected narrow margins, whose policies would also adversely affected other marginalized communities. Accordingly, not only is abandoning Biden counterproductive to the aims of Muslim voters, but doing so also exposes other vulnerable groups to risks of severe harm. This utilitarian sentiment was expressed angrily by one Twitter user in my replies:
“You don't want to vote thus resulting in Trump being re-elected, but I'm supposed be to sympathetic to your cause. Fuck that. If you don't understand voting for harm reduction, and that sometimes you have to vote to keep evil from taken [sic] hold, then I don't know to tell you”
The harm reduction claim has never seemed compelling to me, principally because such proclamations rarely make clear how harms are tallied and calculated. If the Muslim Ban is the primary harm that Muslim Americans must plug into their reduction calculus, then should they also account for the fact that the foundation for this policy was laid during the Obama presidency, when the Visa Waiver Improvement Program and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act was signed into law? What about immigration policy, where in the last few months the Biden administration has reactivated the mass deportations of asylum seekers? What about drone warfare, which in the last two decades has exacted an appalling toll on Muslim communities across the world? What about increased funding in military aid to Israel, which has emboldened the extremist factions in Israel to expand settlements and terrorize innocent Palestinians?
While pragmatists insist that voting should always promote the common good, they rarely specify whose common good they expect us to prioritize. If their claim is that it is more profitable to vote for Biden, then the burden is on them to present convincing arguments to that effect. Arguments that are grounded in realities of the present moment, that acknowledge the legitimate grievances that Muslim Americans have put forth in recent weeks, instead of trivializing such concerns by emphasizing some greater future evil.
Electoral deliberation is a process in which good reasons must be offered in support of collective choices, but our choices do not have to have a desirable fit with the preferences of a particular group or politicians. In a well-ordered democracy, multiple conceptions of the good can contend for collective approval, and political negotiation is conducted through reasoned dialogue, instead of rhetoric that is intended to intimidate and silence justified demands for justice.
The Moral Argument
History tends to judge favorably individuals who refuse to relinquish principle and integrity in the face of politically adverse conditions. But we also have certain duties toward society, arising from the recognition that our interconnectedness necessitates a commitment to collective wellbeing. So, while we might have good political reasons to resist the pressure to vote pragmatically, is doing so a morally sound choice? Or do we have an ethical duty to vote for the lesser evil when our choices are equally unappealing?
For those embracing a pragmatic perspective, the answer to this question is straightforward. Pragmatists contend that we do not inhabit a morally perfect world; rather, our moral choices are perpetually qualified and conditional, responsive to the situational demands that the world imposes on us. While there might be occasions when one can align their actions with their moral ideals, more often than not, our decisions involve navigating among undesirable options, discerning between lesser and greater evils. Furthermore, pragmatists argue that acting on feelings of anger towards a particular politician, while understandable, could taint the capacity for moral reasoning, leading to outcomes that might seriously harm the common good. Therefore, the pragmatic stance advocates voting for Biden in the upcoming election, as abstaining could, according to pragmatists, result in far greater harms—specifically, the reelection of Donald Trump.
While this line of reasoning might seem appealing, it would come across to most reasonable people as a non sequitur, since it shifts the focus from intrinsic to instrumental reasons for being angry at Biden. To clarify what I mean here, I want to draw on the work of the philosopher Amia Srinivisan, and her account of the aptness of anger as a response to instances of injustice. According to Srinivisan, the issue of whether an oppressed person’s anger is an apt response to injustice does not turn on consequences, good or bad. Anger can make the oppressed person worse off, but that is no reason for the angry person to suppress her anger and not act on it. Here’s an example that might make this distinction clearer. Suppose you discover your lover has been unfaithful to you. You confront the bastard, but in response to your anger, which is a wholly justified response to a moral violation, he says to you: ‘You shouldn’t get angry because this could make me cheat more, which is worse than what I am currently doing.’ Alternatively, he might tell you that breaking up with him could yield some very unpleasant outcomes, because you could potentially end up with an even more unfaithful lover. But now you have two reasons to be angry, according to Srinivasan, because two wrongs have been committed: first the betrayal of your trust, and second, the subsequent refusal to treat your anger as intrinsically legitimate. Your anger has been dismissed because it has been instrumentalized, reduced to the question of whether or not it’s a productive response to moral wrongdoing.
The pragmatists who urge us to vote for Biden, because our anger could make things worse, are akin to the unfaithful lover. Initially, they position themselves as well-meaning allies. They are concerned, they tell us, with our well-being and the interests of those who have been treated unjustly. They recognize the moral violation and injustice that we are trying to draw attention to—namely the genocide of Palestinians. But instead of demanding that the powerful shift courses in response to such injustices, the pragmatists tell us that acting on anger will ultimately worsen things. Clearly, there is something deeply morally insensitive in a response like this. On Srinivisan’s account, this way of reacting to injustice, which the anger of the oppressed seeks to draw attention toward, constitutes an additional wrong for two reasons. First, it shifts the burden of responsibility for fixing the problem from the politician to the voter. Second, it treats the injustice as a fixed fact, rather than a largely contingent feature of political decision-making.
Thus, the liberal exhortation to vote for Biden is social control masquerading as social concern. The demand that you should vote to improve your condition is not an expression of solidarity or moral concern. Rather, it is a masked attempt at stifling and repurposing your anger. You’re angry? Don’t boo; instead, vote. And vote for the politician that we are demanding you vote for. Otherwise you are an agent of your own misery, a catalyst for the fire that will burn down your own community. But once you’ve voted, do not expect immediate results. You have to bear in mind the practicalities of change-making, and ultimately learn to accept that things do not change as swiftly you might like. Wars happens and people die, and “that’s what war is,” as Biden’s National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, John Kirby, said a couple of weeks back. As Srinivasan notes, this kind insistence on pragmatism is often defended by people like Kirby as simply stating the facts. But such responses fail to understand how the insistence on pragmatism itself can be oppressive, insofar as they obfuscate the fact that such injustices are entirely preventable.
The Limits of Pragmatism
Pragmatism is the liberal's default rationale for consistently opting for the lesser evil among equally unappealing choices. However, in the realm of electoral and political alliances, pragmatism is a double-edged sword. Over the last two decades, the Democratic Party has continuously assumed the support of Muslims and Arabs, treating our presence as purely instrumental. Repeatedly neglecting our concerns, the party has overlooked the nuances of our experiences and the urgency of our grievances. Yet, every few years, we are demanded to mobilize in support of lackluster politicians, with the admonition that refusing to uncritically fall in line could lead to seriously self-harming consequences.
Since the outset of the war on Gaza, the Biden administration has worked diligently to deliver billions in armaments to Israel. They have deployed warships to the eastern Mediterranean to bolster the Israeli military and intimidate Palestinians. Biden himself has said, in front of news cameras and the whole word, that he has “no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” while the images that trickle out of Gaza paint a picture of untold suffering. His ambassador to the United Nations rejected calls for a ceasefire weeks ago and vetoed such resolutions. His State Department has repeatedly refused to describe the assault on Gaza as genocidal, claiming that any comparisons between Gaza and Ukraine are inappropriate.
While Democratic loyalists can continue to harangue Muslim activists about the perils of another Trump presidency, we have to enforce a limit to our willingness to ally ourselves with politicians who support genocide. We can no longer afford to suppress our anger. This is the moment where a line must be drawn in the sand, or else we risk losing both the integrity of our persons and the power of our votes. 15000 dead Palestinians, over 70000 of them children, should serve as a stark reminder that pragmatism has its limits, and that we have reached ours.