Democratic arrogance flares up in Michigan

Perhaps Vice President Kamala Harris thought she could take Michigan’s Middle Eastern communities for granted. In a state with a huge Iraqi-American community, Harris touted support for former Vice President Dick Cheney, who helped destroy Iraq, and campaigned together his equally neoconservative daughter, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney. And in a state with a huge Lebanese- and Palestinian-American community, one of Harris’s final campaign messages was pro-Israel rants Former President Bill Clinton spoke.

Unrecorded movementwho represented about 100,000 disaffected Democrats in Michigan, warned that Harris would have to make at least a symbolic concession to Palestinian rights to get those voters to come home. Democratic leaders have dismissed the risks, saying wars in the Middle East wouldn’t be a significant problem. After all, former President Donald Trump “wants to ban Arabs from entering the country,” President Joe Biden said. said. “We will make sure we understand who cares about the Arab population.” What would Arab Americans do? Vote for Trump?

The answer, as it turned out, was yes. Trump won According to latest results. It was a shocking result for the community that left 74 percent for Biden in 2020. But this was not surprising. Muslim and Arab-American figures were warning for several months that foreign policy was decisive problem in parts of Michigan. And Trump made a real effort to win those votes, including lend a helping hand Abdullah Hammoud, the Democratic mayor of Dearborn.

Hamoud refused to support either candidate. He said he wouldn’t be there.”deceived“Trump, who supported Israel vs Palestinians and supported Saudi-led war in Yemen. (It should be noted that Michigan also has a large Yemeni-American community.) Hamoud also convicted Biden administration massive support for the Israeli military campaigns and for the Harris campaign’s decision to send Cheney and Clinton to Michigan as surrogate representatives.

Clinton speech November 1st turned out to be especially offensive Arab and Muslim communities. He began by saying he understands “why young Palestinian and Arab Americans in Michigan think too many people have died” in Israel’s wars. “The people who criticize this are essentially saying, yeah, but look at how many people you’ve killed in retaliation, so how many do you have to kill to punish them for the terrible things they’ve done?” – he said.

But Clinton quickly took a different tack: “It all sounds good until you realize what you would do if it was your family and you did nothing but support the Palestinian homeland, and one day they would come for you.” ? Then, without any prompting, Clinton began talking about how the Israelis “came first” in “Judea and Samaria” (the Israeli nationalist term for the West Bank), and how the Palestinian leader told him that the Arabs “only care about (the Palestinians) when they need to blame America and Israel for the fact that their people are upset.”

Trump, instead of condescending to Middle Eastern voters, spoke to them as if he wanted your voices. “They can swing the election one way or the other,” Trump said at a news conference. October 26 rally along with the Muslim clergy in Michigan. “Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan and across the country want an end to the endless wars and a return to peace in the Middle East. That’s all they want,” Trump added. He also attacked Harris for campaigning with Cheney.Muslim Hater and Warmonger“

Harris tried to repair the damage in rally on November 4 along with Arab-American leaders in Michigan, vowing to “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure the security of Israel, and ensure that the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity”. , freedom, security and self-determination.”

Michigan has about 211,405 people. Arab-American residentsand about 241,828 Muslim residents. Each community itself makes up just over 2 percent of the state’s population. (They are the same, but not completely. Many Muslims in Michigan not Arab, many Arabs are Christians and many of Chaldeo-Assyrian Iraqis in Michigan consider themselves neither Arabs nor Muslims.) Trump currently leads in Michigan by just over 93,000 votes.

Is Trump really keeping his promises or is he exploiting the end to endless wars? as an excuse even for more Military escalation remains to be seen. After all, his first administration was filled with Iran-Obsessed War Hawksand many of the same names are on list of his cabinet ministers.

But the fact that he made these promises shows how the foreign policy dynamics of the presidential election have changed. Democrats thought it was a question get ahead of your competitors. Now peace-loving voters have made it clear that there is a political situation. expenses to war. Both sides ignore this at their peril.